This appeared in the Summer Special issue of Tehelka.
GOKARNA
Harem Pants And Psychedelic Trance
Deepika Arwind
Writer and journalist based in Bengaluru
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| Salt slippers Many of Gokarna’s beaches can only be reached only on foot Photo: MADHUSUDAN ATRI |
I’M LOOKING for a less overwhelming experience than Goa — with its endless choices of hotels, food and beaches — and fighting the near-impossibility of skinny-dipping in Pondicherry’s waters (pardon me if I’m wrong, for I’ve been to neither) — and Gokarna, seems the ideal getaway in the face of these impulses. A bustling temple town on the west coast, in Uttar Kannada district, Gokarna means ‘cow’s ear’, from which Lord Shiva is said to have emerged.
To get myself a sliver of history and a potentially unadulterated beach holiday, I board the Sugama Sleeper Travels bus from Bengaluru. Twelve hours later, the bus unloads its groggy passengers on Gokarna town’s streets, where I shop for clothes — floozy dresses and harem pants (flat rate Rs 100, and still bargaining). From there, it’s a quick ride to Kudle beach, where the auto (for Rs 100, no bargaining) pulls up on a clean shoreline. Except for a few heads bobbing in the water, there’s nobody here. The other options are Om, Half-moon and Paradise beaches. They get successively rockier, and Om beach is ‘commercial’ by Gokarna standards. I’m booked nowhere, and Sunset Cafe is welcoming: at Rs 150 a night, any shack is.
Badal, our Bihari host, who came to Gokarna for the good life, cooks up a mean breakfast complete with sausages and hash potatoes — the result of endless years of trying to please ‘firangs’. He gets along well with them, playing psychedelic trance and chatting all day.
The shacks are basic: a light bulb and undulating beds. There are only two bathrooms/toilets — needless to say they are dirty. Unless there’s a conscientious hippie cleaning the bathroom ‘for the community’ (which there was), or you are willing to spend on the sole five-star hotel (not quite the same experience), there aren’t many choices.
| TRIFLES 20,000 people flock to Gokarna on Shivaratri to watch the temple chariots steered by hundreds leading the procession Nearest airport: Mangalore Nearest station: Kumta, Karnataka |
Outside, the water is cold and the beach, deserted. Cows sleep and girls sell beaded necklaces. You can roll on the sand or dive in the sea till sundown. I spot two white bums in the water that belong to hippie infants Baby Ganesha and Baby Stella who are afloat in the sea with their families.
At lunchtime, gorge on beer, wood-oven pizzas, extraordinary seafood from butter garlic prawns to squid tikka, and fresh salad. Try the Lebanese-Israeli selection and even some momos served at the cafes (all of which aren’t open in the peak of summer).
The day, be warned, is spent in the minor oscillations between the sea and the shack, eating and swimming, or just buoying lightly. Others, I hear, trek across the forest-hills for a glimpse of the other beaches, but I stop at a boat-ride to Om beach.
Three days and a dark tan later, I’m back in Gokarna town, making a quick dash to the Mahabaleshwar temple. There’s more to buy in the markets — zari bags, embroidered shoes, yellow leather chappals, fisherman pants and balloon skirts. And then the bus back to Bengaluru, where I’ll need my sunblock this summer, and where I’ll lament the poor quality of an overpriced kingfish fillet.
