Urrak: Goa’s liquid summer soul

In the old days, summer was when one left Goa. Old Portuguese houses got stiflingly hot without air conditioning, foreigners returned home, the parties stopped, and the markets shut.

I’ve lived here on and off since the early 2000s, moving further and further away from the hippie haunts of my 20s (they don’t exist anymore), and closer towards the Goa of the Goans. Now, decades later, I live in a small, hidden vaddo, or neighbourhood, whose name is shared with all its inhabitants (except mine). Elaine, my neighbour, knows the trees in my compound better than I do (her home has been in her family since 1871), I never lock my door, the poi man leaves bread at my doorstep for me — whether I pay him or not — every day, and my cat is fed and my garden watered by Bani next door (because I gave her son my old guitar).