A13-year-old boy leaves his ancestral village in Karnataka and joins his uncle working at a shack in North Goa’s Calangute beach. Six years later he can still be found at the beaches any given day. The difference? He speaks English with a Jordie (a person who comes from Newcastle England) accent, is conversant in Hebrew and can hold his own in Russian. He has a snazzy laptop and a different firangi girlfriend every month for six months of the year.
Meet Krishna, one of the many hundreds who make a living from Goa’s tourist trade. Like him, most of these boys are school dropouts, almost illiterate but fluent in English and at least another foreign language. At Baga beach it’s English, at Anjuna it’s Hebrew, at Morjim beach it’s Russian.
For Krishna, that’s just fine. The more foreigners in Goa, the better for him. During the day he is hard at work at the beach shack at Baga, moving sun beds, waiting at tables, giving the occasional massage and even helping out in the kitchens. The English tourists love him. “That one’s always smiling,” says Dave Wolslay, a 61-year-old tourist from UK. “I have been coming to Goa for the last five years and every time I spend my days at this shack. I know Krishna since he first came to Baga beach from Calangute. He could hardly speak English then and look at him now,” he says. “Hey Dave, you talkin aboot me?” shouts Krishna fondly at Dave and then at this correspondent, “Don’t listen to him, mate. He’s going crazy as he is growing old.”
In 2008 Krishna visited Dave’s family in Newcastle (his trip sponsored by Dave). “I hated it in England,” he says. “Too damn cold man. And the food they eat? My god.”
While his income from the shack is meagre, the tips are great (a laptop, a digital camera, Nikon binoculars…) and the perks are fabulous. “British girls love us,” he says proudly. “I have around two to three girlfriends every season. One goes home, I get another.”
Most evenings Krishna goes clubbing with his friends Salu (short for Salvadore) and Santosh. While Krishna and Salu hit the dance floor with their current girlfriends, Santosh nurses a brandy and coke. “Even two years back I was like them,” says Santosh. “Partying with white girls every night, drinking till five in the morning…”
So what happened? “I got married.” To a foreigner? “Are you crazy?” Santosh seems affronted with the idea. “I married my girlfriend, a local girl who worked in the restaurant next to ours. We ran away and got married.”
And how did he and his friends pick up the languages? “It just happened.” Every time Santosh and his friends moved to a different beach they would come across a different set of tourists from whom they would pick up the languages.
“The women on the beach who sell cheap jewellery, sarongs or make henna tattoos are much better than us boys in picking up languages,” says Krishna. He points to Sunita, a young dusky girl who is selling jewellery to a foreign couple. “When she is in Baga she speaks fluent English. I have seen her speaking Russian at Morjim beach. And she can’t even write her name.”
Sunita’s whole family migrated to Goa from Karnataka and all work at the beaches during season. Off season they go back to their village to work the fields during monsoons. “I will get married next year,” she says. But won’t her husband be intimidated with her flair for languages? “At home no one can make out that I know any language other than Kannada.”
Sunita will soon get settled in her husband’s home, most probably in native Karnataka. But what of Salu, Krishna and Santosh? “Every beach boy wants a shack or a water scooter that he can ply someday,” says Salu. “But a water scooter costs Rs 7.5 lakh. For the last two seasons there are hardly any tourists and rides have become very cheap (global recession has hit Goan tourism hard). If a ride is Rs 500, we make only around Rs 150 profit after expenses and bribes. Can you calculate how long it will take for us to just recover the cost of the water scooter?” he asks.
Santosh, who has a one-year-old son, just wants a house somewhere and settle down. “I have had my share of fun for the last 13 years that I have worked the beaches. Now I have my wife and child to think about. I want to settle down somewhere with a regular job,” he says. He no longer has any use for gizmos or girlfriends, he wants stability. Something the beach won’t provide.
Krishna, the youngest of the trio, has the most adventurous plans. He hopes some gori will marry him someday and he will live off her. As long as he does not have to settle down in cold England, he is fine. “I know someone who has married three firangis. When their money runs out or they talk of going back home he just disappears. A few days after they have left, he resurfaces and starts hunting again,” he says almost reverentially.