Thursday, November 29, 2007

Tattooland

I couldnt believe it. An hour ago I was struggling against time to send out a last minute doc to the boss, and now here we were in the airport, two insanely expensive samosas down, boarding a flight to Sossegado land!
Yaaaaay! Two whole days of sun, sand, corpulent Brit tourists, and sea!

"Humph", said the budget airhostess, as we got on the plane at Bangalore. I beamed back at her, hoping to make her day as good as mine. She threw her head back, howled at the overhead bins and gnashed her teeth at us in a most friendly fashion. Before she could reach out and snap our heads off politely, we dived into our seats and hid under our recycled budget-flight magazines.

From my foetal position in the impossibly crammed Spicejet seat, I saw the arid beauty of the Deccan slowly giving way to the lush green of the Sahyadris, and we soon touched down at the immensely charming Dabolim Airport. Minutes later, we were whizzing away to Calangute on the spectacular Goa highway, winding through villages, shipyards, pretty churches and amazing views of the sea.

Bags down, we set off instantly for the beach on a rented Activa. After wading across row upon row of slowly cooking white skin, we finally reached the sea. I'd almost forgotten how magical the Arabian sea can be in winter. Placid, emerald green and ethereal. Disturbed only by the incessant roar of waterscooters, wailing kids, paunchy uncles, and extremely silly looking parasailers. All very pretty though.

Out of the water and ravenous, we drifted into the nearest shack and ordered everything they had. I decided to be goody two shoes on the first leg of my trip, and ordered a glass of nice Goan port wine. The waiter plonked a whole bottle of the good stuff in front of us, and then set down huuuge platters of food with large helpings of chips and tartar sauce. 'Ow English luv, I thought, looking around at the astounding number of identically dour faced, sunburned Brit tourists sipping G&Ts and digging into chicken teeka masollas.

It was heartening though, to see that Goa had indianized quite significantly since our last trip. We saw more than a few twenty-something yuppie Indian couples dotting an otherwise lobster-pink peoplescape. Mostly punju, unfortunately. Their embarrassingly crass accents seemed to bounce right off the grim, silent walls that the Brit tourists had raised around themselves. Ah well, I thought. Silence was never an Indian virtue, and it would do the old coots some good to hear boisterous Indian chatter for a change.

"Tattoo brother?" Asked a local, and showed me into a beachside tattoo parlour. Two stern faced East European women were inside, getting mehndi tattoos. One of them was visibly upset, and was admonishing a Goan boy tattooing her foot with an extremely ugly daisy chain: "I had appointhmenth ath eleffen. Now I am lathe for ze anozer apointhmenth. Zis is verhy unproffessional". "Yeah, yeah, I'll do a good design", replied the Goan boy, with an unfazed Goan grin. What he meant of course was "Yeah fool, that'll teach you to make hourly appointments when you're ankle deep in Mehndi at a beach shack in Goa!"

"Come. I make. Good design. Ae Jigness bhai, book lao." said the main man. Okayyyy, a Gujju tattooist. Excellent! He pointed to various designs in his book and I shortlisted the following :
(a) My name in Gujarati
(b) My mother's name in Hebrew
(c) Celtic design containing a pot of Undhiyu and a pile of Thepla
(c) The words Anna-Saaru-Che entwined on a rose.
(d) "Lucky Laxmi" in purple and green disco dots.

I asked him how much he charged. "Sirji main aapse sirf 5000 maangoonga . Bahut kam daam hai." I resisted the impulse to to tattoo "Poda maanga madaya" (Go away mangofool) on his forehead and run. After much bargaining, he agreed to draw a much cheaper, temporary tattoo on my shoulder that looked like the imprint of a size 12 shoe.

Fake tattoo in place, all I now needed to do was scream "O yaar bill lao fatafat" to the waiter and I'd be the perfect yuppie Punju Goa tourist.

If you can't, mins..matlab.. beat 'em, Oye join 'em yaaru !!

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have made an indelible impression by shouldering the burden of this exhausting trip. Kandhajhulations for a very funny post!

maxdavinci said...

"Poda maanga madaya"

ROFL!

Prats said...

That was a good one....mmm Goa!! Just back from there...and totally agree with u....

Henna design can be done for only 150 rupees saaar!!

Anonymous said...

Size 12 shoe. No way. It looks like
1. cross section of homo sapiens ear
2. side view of stylized crow's face with aboriginee face marks
3. ridiculously easy to solve maze

But hey. looks cool though.

Spunky Monkey said...

Frankly, that looks like a disease to me. But then, everything looks like a disease to me these days. (Bleddy bitch you, carcinoma penis)
Anyway.
You went to Goa? WOW. I want also.
Get a real tattoo man; goes with the Biker Dude image. Do you even watch Miami Ink? A friend of mine is a big fan, he into bikes too.

Anonymous said...

Isht dhoor hogeeri, Calangute kade thelee haakill-yaak?
(So far gone, Calangute towards head didn’t put-why?)

Hubl-yaag saali kaleebekaadr, num dosth obba Goa hog bandhaan-ree, thapp maadidh yenandhra, appa-avva-n jathi hogyaan!
(In Hubli school learning-when, our friend one Goa went and came, mistake made what means, father-mother with, went!)

Aagin-dha solp kangaal mansha avaa, Calangute hodhaag, aen anbek-ree, ‘aay appa-ji, ull nod-ree, hudg-yaar, arbi bicch ninthaav!’
(From then itself, little silly dude he, Calangute went when, what should he say ‘aay father-ji, there see, girls, dress removed and standing!’)

Appa-ji-ge ondh kade nod-bekanth itth, innondh kade hendthi, magan chinthi. Aen madyaar, alle num dosth kaNN mucchi karkoNd bandhr vaapas!
(Father-ji one side wanted to see, other side wife, son worry. What to do, there only, our friend eyes shut and led him back!)

Anonymous said...

Ayyo apacharam, apacharam!

AeN-da brahma-hatthi, sri choornam kutthikka-ra num kulatthula pirandhum unakkum ippadi aeN-da buddhi poe-rdhu?

Itthoda aen nirutthiNTe? KaNN-le mai ittuNdu kai-yoda oru koratthi-yai-um kootiNdu vaa, besh-aa Iyengaar-aathu (Thengalai-thaane?) kalyaaNam nadatthalaam, koravan-koratthi-kku!

Abhipraya said...

I am going to Goa next week and I am not sure how happy I am with the indianisation of Goa with Punju junta :)

"lobster pink people scape" - Very funny LoL
"Poda maanga madaya" - Hadn't heard that in ages.

Bikerdude said...

rambodoc: Uff! Thyanks saar.

maxdavinci: Yaay, innangura nee ippa?

prats: Correct. God knows how much he fleeced Vanessa Vroooshka or whatever her name was for.

KA: Please use as stylized celtic crow in kaka chronicles.

spunky: Haudaaaaaa!! Ask him if he's Chwyneeeeese no? If so,we'll get along very well. ok? ok.

thoppe mama: Hodvi saar. Eega solpa situation change aagyth ri. Ella pirangi deshadinda mudkaru matra kaansodhu alli. Paarthaal pasi theerum udambugal. Blech.
And as for the koravan allegation, I have only one sentence to say to you: "Hadhra hoblegu hunthnesna haablagu swamyoii!"

abhipraya: :) I think its a good thing. Goa doesnt feel uncomfortably firang anymore.

RustyNeurons said...

that picture was of your tattoo????
Oh god!

SK said...

Sound like you were up north.
Try the south Goa beaches next time. No naarthie bling bling and even the whiteys are chilled out.

mmmmm. Kings beer...

I love Lucy said...

What rustyneurons said.
Fake tattoo andre...no using the actual loud and shrill noise making dentist's tool like device aa?

Pri said...

yes yes it's very pretty. watubotforme?

mama mia said...

Wow Dude the lobster pink people scape did it! Me thinks you've found your vocation

pepe M. said...

hahahaha, so typical-cliched goa tourist ;) and a fake tattoo? how sissy! hahahaha! just kidding!

Bikerdude said...

rusty: Anydoubts? Ask quickly-quickly before the darned thing fades away completely :P

daze: You bet. Though the extreme north beaches - Arumbol and Mandrem are my faves. Didnt go this time, cos I didnt get off my butt long enough to, and the company i was with wanted to be amongst the "it" crowd :p

ILL: fake tattoo andre, takings the paint brush , dipping in black voter's ink and painting off. What a, no?

pri: Manythings I bought for you. Come and collect.

mama mia: thanks

pepe: I know, I know!! :) Just didnt want to let a gujarati tattooist do permanent damage to my arm. Next time I'll get the real thing- err I think.

Anonymous said...

"permanent damage to my arm. Next time I'll get the real thing- err I think."

apdi edhaavadhu paNNiniyo-paar, bahishkaaram paNNa solliduvaen Jeeyar-tte!

Edhukkum un koravan bhashayai vivarama sollaen! Puriyalla.

Bikerdude said...

TM: Jeer is already jeering at me for not having a janivara at my old age. May as well piss him off further. Besides, he is one step ahead of me , what with branding unsuspecting souls with shankha-chakra and all. As for the Koravan bhashai- I have decided to let it remain a mystery to you (and me :P)

cheekyexhibitionist said...

Aah Goa!!! Lying semi naked under the sun (and occasionally moon), gorging myself on fish, and being drunk 24-7. I want to go back.

Anonymous said...

Tooo funny!! So I see you went for option c) Celtic design containing a pot of Undhiyu and a pile of Thepla :P

Anonymous said...

You shoud take a look at this Tatoos, The Revolution

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