Amidst post-dinner conversation with family and friends this one time in Nuremburg, I kept catching snatches of conversation in German where the word Goa cropped up many-a-time. I presumed they were either planning a holiday, or perhaps, discussing one that friends may have had there. You can imagine my surprise when, on his way out after dinner, one of them, Sandro, issued me an invite to join them for Goa the following evening. Having only just arrived in Germany, wild horses couldn’t have dragged me to the only Goa I knew: an erstwhile Portuguese colony on the western coast of India, thousands of miles from where we were now discussing the topic. From the look on Sandro’s face, I knew I was certainly missing something; ignoramus, just one of the good-natured distinctions I earned myself that day.
Eventually, the decision was simply taken out of my hands and I was instructed to be ready for departure after an early dinner the next day. When the time came for me to ready for my ride, I was more than just intrigued. I pulled on my crease-free black number, after a few helpful tips from an aunt pointing at a party that did not entail a long flight back to India. It involved, instead, a long drive towards the countryside, before turning off the autobahn onto a dirt track, and arriving at a clearing in the midst of a dark, thickly wooded area——where, a most amazing sight greeted me.
The place was swarming with Germans of all ages clad in eclectic Indian outfits. Some of them were languishing in tents 
fabricated from materials embellished with batik designs, and others were going about their business out of mobile homes wholly furnished in brilliant tie-and-dye colours. Children, all decked in ghagra-cholis, the kinds you spot at rural fairs in India, ran around chasing dogs with the distinct sound of ghungroos emanating from their collars, dodging candles and incense sticks that dotted the ground like fireflies. An enterprising lady, having converted her tent into a massage corner, was offering to exhibit her skills with a variety of aromatic oils to choose from: jasmine, sandalwood and sesame. A small flea market had been set up a short distance away. As I made my way towards it, a certain suspicious odour, evocative of evenings in and around Manali, pervaded the air. The scene was straight out of a gypsy campsite in Rajasthan; no kidding.
Strains of music, with a distinct techno beat to them, led me to a music console where a disc jockey, I presumed, was pottering around near a dance floor strung up in vibrant neon lights. A number of large, kitschy paintings of Indian gods, their significance lost to most of the Indophiles there, were displayed beyond the floor: not indicative of any spiritual leanings, merely to lend a more authentic hue of Indian-ness to it all. Sandro, who showed me around, and introduced me to all his friends there, was really excited at having brought along a real Indian to show off. His spirits didn’t dampen a wee bit, even when they teasingly (I hope) accused me of being an impostor because I sported western wear, spoke fluent English, and did not fit their stereotype of a dusky Indian beauty. Regrettably, their take on India was based wholly on their encounters with glib guides and seasonal spiritual gurus that flock tourist-heavy beach resorts and Himalayan drug-havens.
Why Goa, I wished to know? Apparently, the name has been borrowed from its namesake in India where these parties originated. Goa also lends its name to the kind of music played at such parties: Psychedelic Trance. Psy-trance, as it is popularly termed, turned out to be an absorbing form of repetitive beat music, blended with melodic and acoustic sounds stemming from instruments as varied as the sitar, gongs, drums and the didgeridoo, but minus all speech elements. Mystery solved, all of us decided to hit the dance floor. Expecting to see a lot of head-banging, I was amazed at the unexpected gentleness on display, almost akin to meditative swaying, by some of the dancers. Thankfully, I was part of a more energetic group and we managed to dance the night away…
Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu, travel enthusiast and the author of Adrift: A junket junkie in Europe is the youngest of four siblings born into an aristocratic family of Punjab. Dogged in her resistance to conform, and with parental pressure easing sufficiently over the years, she had plenty of freedom of choice. And she chose travel.
She was born in Shimla, and spent her formative years at their home, Windsor Terrace, in Kasumpti while schooling at Convent of Jesus & Mary, Chelsea. The irrepressible wanderlust in her found her changing vocations midstream and she joined Singapore International Airlines to give wing to her passion. She has travelled extensively in Asia, North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and SE Asia; simultaneously exploring the charms within India.
When she is not travelling, she is writing about it. Over the past decade or so, she has created an impressive writing repertoire for herself: as a columnist with Hindustan Times, as a book reviewer for The Tribune and as a contributor to travel magazines in India and overseas. Her work-in-progress, the documenting of colonial heritage along the Old Hindustan-Tibet Road, is an outcome of her long-standing romance with the Himalayas.
