Elephants and Enfields, Evelyn Calvert [little readers .TXT] 📗

plastic ruler catapault in my lesson, Calvert, I shall break your fucking legs. Do you understand me?’
I did understand but had to nod mutely as I had a mouthful of soggy chewed paper. She had a facility with languages did Miss Le Grys.
It should have been awful in that cubicle but after ten hours ‘sans stoges’ it was great.
It was the roller-coaster roar and the squeak, squeak, squeak of the baggage carousel which prompted our return to the small main concourse. Compared to the smooth, almost silent, stainless steel and glass affairs at most modern arrivals halls, the tiny carousel at Goa International stops and starts and stops again in an almost comic ritual that prompts you to imagine a small group of adolescent Indians running inside a giant hamster-wheel affair out of sight of the passengers and linked by a Heath-Robinson series of cogs and pulleys to the conveyor. They must be tired today for things are moving very slowly.
‘I’m going outside for another smoke’ announces Hannah. ‘I’ll find us a taxi.’
She turns and strides through the third security check carrying with her the plane ticket stubs, the requisite short immigration forms and the tobacco. Unfortunately she also strides out with both passports. I call out to her but she is already into the sunshine being accosted by tour reps, porters, garland vendors and taxi touts.
I turn back in time to see a huge mountain of suitcases slump from the belt where the ‘hamsters’, it seems, have found a burst of energy which catches out the trolley boys. They are frantically removing cases from the carousel. I’m still suppressing a grin when I notice a porter in what appears to be chocolate-coloured pyjamas milling about in the throng with our sailing bag on his trolley.
These lads get so carried away with ensuring their tip levels remain buoyant that they almost overlook the helpless passenger who is still standing open-mouthed waiting for his case to appear. He threw his eye. I caught it. I was less successful in finding a spouse-shaped catcher for mine. Hannah was nowhere to be seen and by now the porter and I had reached security where a machine-gun toting Indian Navy guard who had even less of a smile than I, did his best to not understand why I didn’t have a passport or any of the other pieces of official paper that I should have had.
I mentally labelled myself ‘Stupid Pasty Tourist Who’s Lost His Passport …… No.6’.
I thought about trying to sneak past the control via the foreign exchange cubicle in the entranceway but, like the Mona Lisa, every time I looked toward naval security, his eyes were upon me. I returned and tried again to explain to Goa’s doorman that I needed to leave the terminal in order to retrieve my passport but was re-rebuffed. It was then that I finally twigged and, reaching into my pocket, pulled out my spare passport cunningly disguised as a 500 rupee note, a leftover from a previous visit. I mused that if I stood here much longer, I would have little difficulty in convincing even a Scotland Yard face recognition expert that the picture of Mahatma Gandhi on the note was my passport picture.
The Great Mephisto would have been proud to have palmed the money as adeptly as my new khaki friend and so pyjamaman and I hit the sunshine to find Hannah sitting on the concrete kerb partaking of a smoke and conducting a leisurely conversation with a middle-aged female fellow traveller whom she’d adopted.
My wife is an amiable and generous soul but rather prone to starting conversations that I am obliged to terminate. . . . usually because of a shortage of life-expectancy.


CHAPTER 2
The Road To Baga

In praise of the Maruti - The avoidance of Coconuts - Army Camps - Pattobridge -

‘Did you get a taxi?’ I interrupted. ‘No, get one from the official rank’.
I reacquainted myself with my passport and returned to the entrance to the terminal where there is a taxi booking office. The government-fixed prices are displayed here. Baga, our destination …. 750 rupees.
Although the price of a coach transfer is included in most package deals, the advantages of taking a taxi are several. It‘s more comfortable to start with and gets you to your hotel without having to call at five others first. It also entirely obviates the need to wait for the tosser who can’t find his luggage / passport / piece of paper with the name of his hotel written on it / brain and who you can guarantee will be ticketed for your coach.
You know what it’s like. We’re all sat on the coach with our welcome garland of flowers round our necks, clutching complimentary plastic bottles of lukewarm water. The travel representative is clutching her clipboard and running around as if she’s just had a tarantula drop down the front of her blouse when a well meaning but simple member of the party decides that he’s sure he knows the whereabouts of the missing passenger. Off he toddles and almost immediately the wayward subject of his search strolls onto the coach and sits down to the combined ‘tut’s of the others. Now all we have to do is find the finder….oh, and the driver who has by now got fed up and gone for a cup of tea.
Having been given a chitty and a cast-iron guarantee that it was ok to smoke in the taxi, we gave ourselves and our baggage up to fate and the talents of our driver, Raj.
In a jiffy we were ensconced in as close as a Maruti taxi can get to the interior of St.Peter’s Basilica.
The Maruti Omni microvan is the most prolific of any ‘four-wheeler’ in Goa. Most people would recognise them as Suzuki or Bedford minivans as they are a product of a Japanese / Indian collaboration that started back in 1981. Taxi operators almost exclusively use Omnis. You know what they say about rats?......that wherever you go, anywhere on the planet, you are within 5 metres of one. Well it’s the same in Goa with Marutis.
I’m certain that when they leave the production line near New Delhi, they are fine examples of the automotive designer and builder’s art. Give one to a Goan though and within ten minutes he will have added considerably to its charm and individuality. I feel sure that each one sold comes with the following inclusions in the owner’s manual:-

1.) Replace the boring conventional plastic dashboard fitted by us fools at Maruti with a far more stylish faux fur one. The longer and more outrageous the colour of the fur, the more you will be the envy of your fellow drivers. Whilst you are at it, our upholsterers can be a little conservative, so get yourself some seat covers and a roof lining from the faux furrier too. But remember, you lose all that hard-earned kudos if it matches the dashboard in any way.

2.) Tint those ridiculously clear windows, I know we should have mirrored them as standard. You won’t be paying much attention to what’s going on outside anyway.

3.) Find yourself a local accessory store and order at least one, if not two, of every single line that he sells and bolt, glue or tape it on. Extra points are scored for anything that is chromed or illuminated.

4.) Next source a really hefty battery because the puny one we installed won’t be able to cope once you’ve fitted the spotlights, stereo, reverse warning alarm which plays the theme tune from ‘Titanic’ or ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ and full colour, animated nativity or Madonna with Child with l.e.d. eyes. This will look just perfect nestled amongst the leopard-print fur on the dash.

5.) I’m afraid we skimped a little on graphics and logos too so you might want to invest in a large rear window sticker which proclaims ‘Mary, our Saviour’,’God is Great’,’St.Francis Xavier, my friend’ or ‘Michael Schumacher’s Taxi’. Whatever it does say, make certain that it is large enough to completely obscure your vision through the back window. Stupid place to put a window really. Hardly necessary when you’ve got Celine Dion singing her heart out every time you select reverse.

6.) Finally, hand it over to your friendly local signwriter and have him paint ‘Horn OK Please’ all over the tailgate.

Et voila, you’re ready to hit the streets safe in the knowledge that you are about as bonkers as the thousands of other taxi drivers that ply this state and still quite reserved compared to the Philippine jeepney cabbie.
Of course, I write this with a deep sense of affection for the Goan taxi driver and his trusty mount. In all our trips to India, we have never found one that has not been abnormally friendly, helpful, polite and fair. These cabs are dirt-cheap and so numerous that you need never worry about being stranded without transport. You could be on a tiny sandy track in the middle of nowhere at 3 in the morning and out from the back of a coconut palm would come the call
‘Taxi, sir, taxi, madam?’ accompanied by a cheery smile and glinting eye, the moon reflecting off his chromed Madonna bonnet mascot!
We rocket, as best a Maruti can rocket, from the confines of the airport onto national highway 17A, slide open the windows, spark up a fag and sink back into the fur seat covers for the ride to Baga some twenty-five miles distant.
I cannot tell you how difficult it is to roll a stig in the back of a Maruti, vibrating over the ‘rumblers’ ( multiple ‘sleeping policemen’ sometimes ten or so abreast ) with a hot cyclone circulating within and the six inch long pelt headlining sticking to your eyeballs.
Hannah and I look at each other and grin from ear to ear. It’s the grin that says ‘We’re back at last’. The same grin that children adopt when they are excited at being given a present beyond their dreams. The grin that accompanies the squiddly feeling in your stomach, the anticipation of good things to come. We’re like a pair of kids really.
The midday breeze that blows across the river and rushes in through the open window is now as hot as a hairdryer and as welcome as a lottery win. Not at all oppressive, more like a warmed towel wrapped around you as you step from a bath. The familiar scenery and its accompanying scents and sounds are like long-lost friends.
The National Highways are the A roads of India. They are generally smooth and wide and very busy. The 17A is a short spur running alongside the Azuri River from Dabolim and Vasco Da Gama to National Highway 17.
Off to the left through the trees and only a few yards from the verge lie berthed ore barges in tiny boatyards. Any part of the 200 foot hulks which aren’t rusty have been painted rusty red…. excepting the wheelhouses and gunwhales which are rusty white. Golden falls of acetalene sparks curtain their laddered flanks and huge metallic clangs echo across the river and into the palms. They remind me of queen bees with their diminutive attendant scurrying workers….resourceful welders and riveters that can coax a 35 - 40 year lifespan from a vessel designed to last half that.