Raghu playing with Zakir Hussain

This deserved a break in the Goa trip chronicles.

Raghu is in concert with Ustad Zaakir Hussain at Mumbai this evening.

Girija had told me about this concert and sent it's poster, a couple months back, and it was super exciting. Just to see his picture on the poster alongwith the greats in music was just so so fulfilling. And today she sent me this.

Lower row, third from right is Raghu.

She's going to Mumbai for the concert. And am I glad, as there were some potential obstacles there. Glad she stuck it out.

Then yest morning, I'm talking to Vishakha; she was supposed to be coming to Hyd today, and she says "hey, there's change of plans, I'm not coming as I'm going to a jazz concert of Zakir Hussain, paid a fortune for it"

What a Wow moment.....just to be able to say "know what, Raghu's playing in the concert too !!"

These are such precious moments, as they validate hours and hours of such difficult, almost gut wrenching thoughts, conversations and conflicts through the process of  Raghu's journey with his guitar. Right from the day when at twenty two he came home and according to Girija, threw the engineering certificate in her face and said "this was for you amma, now I'm on my own".

It's been no smooth journey.....and continues to be so. Walking the alternate path is tough.....there's always the uncertainty, the ups and downs, crazy pressure.........to stick through all that is no easy course. These are the moments of glory that can hold you there.

Today is International Jazz Day, and what a wonderful  day to be dedicating this to Raghu and his music.

Congratulations Raghu... not just for being on this concert, but for having persisted, and believed in your dream.. in your passion.. and in yourself, so proud of you !!!

And Girija, to you too.....cause god knows girl, or should I say 'I know', you so deserve it too !

Adding in....at 7 pm, a picture of the proud parents at NCPA:

Congratulations again Ram and Girija....surely a super proud moment for you!!

Touching the fort wall.....

Weird title huh ?

That's because what started as a nice easy early morning stroll along Candolim Beach, somewhere along inspired Sujata to want to do what she's apparently always wanted to do.

Go touch the Aguada fort wall that's at the far end....barely visible from where we started.

I was like "chal, tera yeh qwaish poora karthe hain". It was an absolute stretch.....how much ever we walked it still looked further away. It took us almost an hour and a half to just get there.

The walk there in pictures. No, first the drive there, as by day 3 we'd shifted into Sterling, Bardez, which was wonderful, especially as it was just twenty mins from Panjim, then also a twenty minute drive from the beach. 

The drive there through town

by Mandovi

After a half hour walk, the fort wall still as far

The sea

Sujata, clearly feeling jubilant....over an hour in and we could atleast see the fort wall 

At last in clear sight

 Her moment

 Us by the fort wall

Then a coup....we managed to hitch a ride back from the life guards. And while they kept saying this was never done, and they didn't give rides, for whatever reason, they said yes to us :)

Love and respect for the feet .....

This set the stage for our mornings. However tedious the previous day, hangover not withstanding, .....we were up by 6 each morning for a walk on the beach. Each day a new beach and each day a new experience.

Tough Stay........

This might sound a tad judgmental, but I yet need to say it... the place where we stayed the first two nights was sheer horror.

When the trip was being planned, we were both so hard pressed on time that we didn't focus on the littler details. It was all about just making it happen. We went with a referred booking at a lodge in Panjim..... it was more like 'long as someone else is doing the booking work for us kinds'. 

While we were both prepared for basic and functional.....we weren't prepared for this. 

Details would sound gory so I'll spare that, but suffice it to say that the first night, even dog tired and late, we actually looked for other places. But with the low energy levels we were at, we couldn't find any. Thought we'd do it the next day,  but the exhibition took up the entire day, so even second day didn't happen.

Second night was funny though. Work wound up at around 8, but we didn't want to go back to the room. We actually sat on the main road by the river, watching the casino cruises till really late......... biding our time till we knew we could just step into the room and drop dead kinds :)

No, I don't have pictures of the room....but the street was super cute, so that I have:

Luis de Menezes Street on which the hotel was

View from the room

From the room again....it's quite amazing how much tiled roof still exists in Panjim... way more than even jangareddigudem (our village)

On our way to breakfast the next day, a woman selling fish on the street. Some trivia..when this door opened, out walked two cats and a dog before the lady of the house...was just so nice to see.

The view of the casino boats. We were thinking how instead of sitting on the road, if we'd had the energy, we would have gone gambling :)

We found Cafe Morango, a super cute cafe on the next street....I got some wonderful wine drops  for dad (little drop size cookies, which are one of his favorites).

A selfie in the cafe

When we say travel teaches.....we need to know it teaches in a lot of tough ways too :)

The accident on the way

We can wish it hadn't happened, but it did.

This was same day, day 1 of trip....about an hour before Panjim, yet in the ghats ............ a deceptive massive speed breaker, sudden brakes and it's screeeech ! whaaam ! baaanng! and Sujata in shock, "Oh god, Smiiii......lagayaaa reeee"

Sujata's car

That guy's car

Everyone's off their cars, everyone talking at the same time, no one listening......typical accident scene.

Must say I learnt a lot about Sujata this trip.....she's pretty gutsy that way. I'm trying to tell those guys "least you can do is apologize, atleast accept it's your fault" and she straight off says "pehle compensation do, phir jao".  He's like "madam, mehna me do teen accident tho hote hain mere, subko compensation detha jaaunga kya?". And she's like "aap ko hothe honge, mera yeh pehla accident hai......aap ki galthi hai, aap do mujhe"

All to no avail. Done venting, he pushed off.

(Sujata's like, "damn, I should have taken his key", and I was like "thank god that thought came to you after he left" :)

We were still hanging around, wondering what to do.....by which time a few people had gathered and one of them who had overheard it all said "there's a police outpost nearby"

We decided to go. 

It was a quaint little police outpost hidden inside a thicket. I was still walking up the steps, when Sujata, who had gone ahead, quickly came out looking all hassled and dazed. I'm like "kya hua?".....and she's like "arre, that guy's not wearing any clothes re" :) 

It's one of those moments when you don't know whether to laugh or to cry. In the middle of nowhere, a proper out outpost.....as isolated as it can be, and this.... 

But then, he soon came out all neatly dressed, and he was real nice. He heard us out fully, was willing to take an FIR, then got on the phone with that guy who'd sped away. He spoke to him with the authority that would make anyone sit up.....the proper police kind, no nonsense language. I was super impressed.

               

All of this eventually led to Ali actually meeting us at Panjim after two days...... with compensation.

What an experience !! And a big kudos to the Goa police ...they were really nice and efficient.

Flag Off

This is flag off for our drive to Goa.

As the trip started to get finalized and dates fell into place, while default plan was that we meet at Goa, new thoughts started to surface.

Why not make this a road trip was the new thought....Hubli to Goa is a lovely drive...Can we...

Not only because we both so enjoy road trips, but because it had it's pluses too....It would give us that much more flexibility when in Goa, especially considering taxi's there are a real rip off. Added bonus was that Sujata got to take even more paintings.

To make this happen, I had to first get to Hubli, and though that extended my already fairly long trip by a further two days we decided to do it......and it proved itself a damn good decision, adding so much verve, fun and possibilities to the trip.

I took a night bus from Hyd to Hubli, reached at 9 am....a quick shower and breakfast, and we were off by 10.30 am. 

The first leg, Hubli-Dharwad-Belgaum is a scenic drive and then you get to the ghats. Between Belgaum and Goa stretch the western ghats...... so it's drive through mountains high enough to make your ear pop a few times, and there's thick forest too. So definitely alluring and exciting.

While we meant for exciting in spirit.....we got more. We actually got into a minor accident. An unexpected speed breaker, sudden brakes and the guy behind rammed into us.... breaking one of his headlights and one side of our fender.  Tempers were ruffled, longish altercation happened, he pushed off without even an apology.... seemed to have found it easy to lay blame on us, two women see. That really got to us, so we decided to report. Found the nearest police station, a cute little outpost high in the ghats....and that was a whole other story. 

A story that ended well..... as the police called that guy, and he actually met us in Panjim the next day with compensation in tow.

The pictures will tell the story better. 

To start at the beginning: 

The car getting loaded...... mostly with paintings, she had 14 large and medium ones....and 30 small ones. That's Arun in the background, and Pratik up front who came down to help load and flag us off.

On the road.....

B'fast stop, actually brunch stop, near Belgaum....... an hour and half from Hubli. We had yummy poori bhaaji and an interesting local tiffin, the name of which I've forgotten.

There's lots of onion farming in the belt

Into the ghats

Thick forest on the way

Somewhere on the top

Above the clouds

Chorla ghat which is border between Karnataka and Goa

And then the accident...... I'll write another post on that, it's an experience that calls for one.

And then yet another episode...a cute one.  We're pretty close to Panjim.... asking for directions and this guy says, "you can take that far off bridge or I'll take your car across by ferry"

Sujata was game. We get the car onto the ferry, which was an adventure in itself, as we're so not used to it. We then settle down for a nice ride. He gave us a ticket, a ticket for 7 Rupees. Before we can even figure how it can be so low,  we find that the guy has literally done a U turn of the ferry, and in under a minute the gang plank landed the other side of the river. Was crazy funny. 

Getting on the ferry......

The other side

A cute little boat ...that's the river we crossed on the ferry, literally crossed.

Driving into Panjim at close to sunset

And from this moment on Google maps became our close and constant companion, for the evening and for rest of trip. We drove straight to Kala Academy for unpacking and setting up of the paintings for the exhibition that started the next morning....... and thus ended an eventful day, well past ten at night.

Vibration of Colors

'Vibration of Colours' is an art exhibition that Sujata is part of. At the Kala Academy, in Goa.

To start at the beginning.....she's been talking of wanting to do a show in Goa for a long time now, over two years in fact. So when last year she said "there could be a show in April '19, will you be able to come", I'd straight off said "yes will, let's make it happen".

That was all of six months back. Slowly though, facets of life took over..... functions in family, work at hectic levels, a death in her family, her husband retiring......and slowly the project kind of faded. She was hard put even completing her new paintings. I was as caught up with stuff my end and running against some crazy deadlines....and between all this the thought just disappeared.

Suddenly, just two weeks back she says "hey....I want to do it...chalthi kya?".

And today we are here.

It's an exhibition organized by Vasantha Arts from Bangalore, exhibiting the works of five artists from across Karnataka.

The five artists are Malyadri, Raju, and Chandrababu from Bangalore, Pavithra from Coorg and Sujata from Hubli. Their paintings are simply wonderful, each with their own unique styles and concepts. Just being in their midst, partaking of their ideas and experiences, has been an esoteric and enriching experience.

I could write a whole page on it, and i guess I will over time, but for now....rest in pictures:

The beautiful Kala Academy in Panjim, Goa. It's architecturally amazing, a Charles Correa creation..... plus sits on the banks of Mandovi.

Sujata and Pavithra with the poster

The art gallery all set....seen from the outside

Inside the gallery

Getting the lamp ready for the inaugural

The poster

Lighting of the lamp by the Chief Guests. Artist Laxman Pai..... a well known veteran artist, principal of Goa College of Art and a Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri winner. He's 93 years old, making it a special honor that he yet graced the occasion. Shaistha, an Art Collector from Goa who brought in a lot of energy into the occasion, and Chandeeshwar, a poet and film personality who brought in a lot of quiet strength and support into the room. Would have loved to know him better, but he left within a day.

He walked around seeing all the paintings...these are all Sujata's paintings.

Malyadri Sir, the soul behind this show got a special handshake for this masterpiece of his

Pavithra, whose first exhibition this is, showing him her paintings

A monsoon series by Chandrababu

An evident admirer. The spectacular center piece is Malyadri's,  and the beautiful ones to the left and right are by Artist Raju from Bangalore.

Another visitor

Gallery in full action

While that's all the gallery stuff, this is some behind the scene action...... previous evening of unpacking and putting up of the paintings.

Malyadri's huge piece, which flew in as rolled up canvas and needed framing here. Even the frame was transported in pieces because of size. It's a crazy amount of effort and commitment.

The paintings going up on the wall

Had to put one final one of Sujata and me, with her paintings as backdrop. While I'be been to her exhibitions before, this one is different..... I feel a part of it.

Malyadri Sir, Janakiram, Raju, Chandrababu, Pavithra and of course Sujata.....it was an absolute joy being a part of this experience. 

All of you have so much art and expression and depth in you that I feel honored being part of the group .......and thanks all for making me feel so welcome.

My best wishes to all of you with your art.... now and in times ahead !!