Please read the chapters in order starting from Drowning — Chapter 0

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

So off we went, leaving Supratik in his bunk bed & his wet dreams. As luck would have it he woke up 20 minutes later and we had to scale back to pick him up. Eventually, we reached our destination at 3 PM. I had not had a single bite since waking up. Varun and Supratik had smoked a joint on the way to the beach. Needless to say, we were Uber starved.

We took umbrage in one of the many shacks at Morjim. It had around 4 or 5 people in it, mostly wonderless Europeans, basking in this cozy microclimate. We ordered a few drinks — GnTs for the lazy boys and an orange juice for me. We had been burping toothpaste by now and decided to order in bulk. Squishy Squids, prickly Pineapples, punchy peanuts, and some chilies were on their way.

The plan was simple. Take a dip, swim, back to the shack, drink your drink, grab your grub, rest, repeat!

Ominously enough, we saw the lifeguard jeep hovering around the shoreline. The snobbish vain cock that I am, I commented, “These lazy fuckers don’t let people go beyond the knee depth. Our beaches need baywatch.” We stripped to our trunks, applied some sunscreen and ran to the welcoming mist.

We must have taken our first dip at around 3:30 PM. The sun was high, the water moderately warm, it felt like the right cocktail for the body. Dipping in Morjim just takes me to a special place. I am often caught in a trance when I feel the ticklish cold water hit my gut. It’s a bit less crowded and retains its beatnik charm. Don’t be surprised if you find starkers or skinny dippers over there. Just don’t stare.

The shacks are all temporary, distant & less commercialized. It’s as close to a nudist beach as any that one might find in this part of the world. The beach waters are clean and calm. For more BDSM hydrodelights I go to Candolim. Its roughest parts will fling your swimming boxers into the wilderness in less than 5.

Morjim on the other hand is a gentle lover, pure vanilla kisses and cuddles.

Right after our first dip, we headed back to the shack to fuel ourselves with booze and some garlic-laden pescatarian meals. Basking in the sun and lying on our sunbeds, we began muttering our usual banter. Guys philosophizing about dumb shit will always be an art mysterious to other groups. It can be easily identified as a conversation devoid of any empathy, emotion or the slightest tangibility. No matter where it starts, it always ends with the group chuckling at some other group at their inferior sense of coolness. This time we babbled about the cringey tik-tokers, banal babes in denims who hadn’t the slightest etiquette around beaches, who were caught hugging the shoreline mud while posing. At some distance, I saw 2 shirtless dudes hugging it out. It wasn’t particularly peculiar, except I casually wondered, what it would take me to hug someone for that long. I’d have to lose my car keys, my wallet & my cuter kid of the 2, in order to tolerate a hug that long, and even that might be a stretch. If you feel my masculinity is too toxic, please understand there’s only so much gentrification a small-town mind like mine can allow for itself to precipitate.

At around 4:45 Varun and Supratik decided that they would take another dip. I hesitated at first but after a few minutes of thoughtless pity, I decided to join them.

To the right of us were these beach rocks and to the left — a group of desi dudes — having a great time in their Rocky and dixy undies.

From the second I entered the dusky tides, I felt something was amiss. The waves were alright, but the beach was sinking in pretty damn quickly.