Diego has bought a Rolls Royce, and everyone knows it. Even I do. Unlike my kids, I cannot differentiate between a Porsche Carrera and a Suzuki Zen, but a Rolls Royce I can recognize, easy.
Diego came back with it from Bombay a few weeks ago, and all he has done since is ride it around the village, up the road leading to the bridge, over by the beach, through the rain-torn fish market, back around the paddy field (emerald green now, a psychodelic marvel.)
Everywhere I go these days, I am sure to see Diego, behind the wheel of his new car. I never met the fabled Diego face to face, but I've heard the stories, this is a man who fears no one and gets what he wants, a local who went all the way with his dreams and brought bigger men to their knees (don't really know what it means or if it's true, its just what goes around.)
He drives slowly, the famous silver angel, painted over in a glimmering gold, on the front hood taking in the sights of monsooned Goa. This angel, used to London and Bombay, has never seen anything like it, surely! The Rolls is a lovely ivory color, long and sleek, wide enough to take up most of the road.
Diego sits calmly at the wheel, in an old t-shirt and simple shorts, dispensing a small smile or a friendly nod to anyone who looks him in the eye. Sometimes a lady sits in the back, an older one, in her best Sunday clothes and a touch of rouge.
It's a beautiful car, opulent and sleek, but it makes you wonder: wouldn't a Vespa have made more sense? Or a Maruti 800, or one of the other compact locally made family cars? Anyway, what is he trying to show us?
Doesn't he realize that as much as we are admiring the car, we are wondering how in the world he got so much money? I am judging this, yes, but I can't help smiling, giggling with a growing delight, every time I pass the Rolls on my aging blue Honda bike, unfashionable in a plastic rain poncho, rain streaming down my tangled hair.
Daily, I get sympathetic messages from friends and family abroad. They are sorry, they tell me, that I have to endure the monsoon, they wish and hope I will maybe reconsider my decision to stay put, they voice their sorrow, even outrage, that the holy One, may She be blessed forever, has cursed India with such an affliction. Poor India. Victim of the monsoon.
My neighbors would be shocked! They think the world is jealous of us for having been singled out for this glory.
I was sitting in front of the little grocery shop down the road yesterday, Zen Stores it is called, drinking some plain soda. I would have preferred something a bit tastier, apricot nectar or a diet Pepsi, but they don't carry all of that in this season, now that the tourists have gone home. We are back to the basics now, local sweets made of boiled brown sugar and peanuts, sickly sweet mango juice, bananas.
I watched Diego's car drive by, it was the second time I saw it that day. I had been planning to go downtown today, there are some urgent things on my list. But the rain caught me, and that's it, there is no way to go, urgent or not.
The electricity bill, the broken stereo, the dentist, it will all have to wait. Everything has to wait and everyone knows it, there is no way to plan. If you are invited somewhere for lunch, it is clear that you will or will not come according to the rain, which has been pouring down on us more or less non-stop for the past month.
It pours, seldom drizzles, seldom pitters, never patters; it drenches in seconds. The earth has exploded into hundreds of shades of green; tiny mushrooms grow in the corners of houses, frogs float happily on leaf boats sailing on rivers which used to be paths. The wells are full again! Ah, the sigh of relief can be heard across India, but only from the areas blessed with a good, strong monsoon: water, once again there is enough water. Thank you G-d, whatever your name.
Sometimes, the rain stops to give the clouds time to regroup. Quickly! Hang the musky laundry out to dry, go on a walk to see the new flowers pushing up through every pore.
There will certainly not be much time until the world turns back into a Symphony in H2O; a chat with the kids fishing by the new bridge, some trimming and branch replanting in the garden, only that much and it will be time to take cover again. There is no choice but to let go, whoever will not is being foolish.
When the Rolls rolled by, and parked a bit down river by the side of the road, I walked on over to say hello (actually, I was giving in to extreme pressure wielded by my little boy, who really really wanted to see the car up close. Diego was so friendly, he even let the boy sit behind the wheel and pretend to steer.
"Cost me 45 lakh (4.5 million rupees)" he said simply, "all in cash, white money. It is a used one, all I could afford. Still, she's beautiful, no?" Yes, we agreed, she is.
"Don't think I am trying to show off or anything" he said, and I lied, and said I wasn't thinking that.
"I just love driving, and this car is lovely to drive. Not much else to do in the monsoon, eh?" We looked at the river, at the men in their undershirts fishing off the side of the road.
"I've led an unusual life" he said, simply, directly, "probably should have gone far away, but I like it here, close to home." He was so peaceful, and I found myself inviting him over for a chai.
"We live really simply" I warned.
"It's the only way to live," he agreed. He gave a little shine to the golden angel with the hem of his shirt, and we went on over to my place, unsuccessfully avoiding the puddles and the thick red mud..