The lure of Anjuna

We are on our way towards the beaches of Vagator from Mapusa, Goa. Along the way, we pass by so closely to Anjuna village's St Michael's Church that a few patches can be seen where the white-washer had been lazy the last time around, slapping on just a single coat of lime wash. At the foot of this massive church, the road splits in two ways. The route to the left skirts the church's façade before curving sharply towards the heart of Anjuna village. For the moment, we will turn left with it.

Tens of thousands of the tourists who land up in Goa each year drive down this road, either heading for the Wednesday flea market or Anjuna beach, which fringes the village on its western edge. They arrive in crowded motorcars or on motorcycles, armed with fruit juices in tetra packs, pints of beer and bottles of drinking water – most of which, empty, later line the streets. Then there are the ever-hurried package-tour buses, tightly packed with tourists from Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal and Karnataka. While a sizeable number of these tourists arrive with their families, quite a few also come in gangs of single males on macho pilgrimages. Anjuna is where the skimpily-clad occidental deities dot the beaches, after all, like tanned idols washed ashore by the sea, soaking in the sun. The eroticism of the famed sculptures of Ajanta, up north in Maharashtra, is trapped in cold stone. But here in Anjuna, the waves and sun kiss the beached, European goddesses to life.

Of course, Anjuna is not that different from other coastal communities. Over the years, a coastal community gets used to the tides bringing in all sorts of driftwood and whatnot. You take it in stride whether the sea washes up a beautifully gnarled piece of root, its surface as smooth as a shark's underbelly; or an opened bottle of brandy; or a used syringe. The tourists are just another kind of arrival on the beach and, boisterous or not, the tourists bring in the money.   What makes Anjuna unique compared to other coastal tourism hubs is the virtual absence of massive hotels, or even large buildings of any kind. For comparison, look at the town of Calangute, just two miles down the beach from Anjuna. What was once an attractive, tropical coastal community has now become Goa's most prominent tourism casualty – a village that has been swallowed up by a concrete town. Calangute is today like a dying organism: the density of hotels here is much higher than anywhere else in Goa, including the capital Panaji, and the character of the idyllic village is lost.

While it was the sudden, rapacious blessings of tourism that did Calangute in, it is thanks to an old curse that Anjuna has managed, thus far, to stave off the concretisation. Few of the local folks are sure of the origins of this curse, but it has been around for such a long time that they have become used to having it around, like the cobweb in the unreachable recesses of one's ancestral home.

Whatever its origin, the curse forbids Anjuna's residents from adding additional storeys to their houses. It is said that all families who have failed to pay heed to this taboo subsequently died out, for one reason or another. This fear has passed down to the clans of Anjuna like an heirloom, from one generation to the next. As I was growing up, nearly all of us were told about it, with the same sanctity and regard with which the gayatri mantra was whispered into our ears during Hindu thread ceremonies.   Still others would learn about the curse unexpectedly – while stepping out for a walk with an aging grandfather, for instance, in the evening after a spell of rain. The old man points to a ramshackle house in the neighbourhood, with wild vines hugging its columns and a few rays of the setting sun slipping through the paneless windows. "This was the house," grandpa recalls. "It belonged to the so-and-so Fernandes. We told them not to add another storey, but they wouldn't listen. They wanted a house that stood out in the ward. Now look at it." The youngster would come back home, mouth agape; the taboo had been passed on to yet another generation. And Anjuna remained small relative to other hotspots of Goa.

Paradise lost
When tourism did finally hit Anjuna, the curse turned out to be helpful for locals. In the absence of big hotels with faraway corporate owners, locals could open their homes to tourists by renting out their rooms. Anjunkars, as the villagers call themselves, were thus able to have a direct and wholesome share of the tourism pie. This was quite unlike other developing tourist destinations, where the presence of elaborate hotels and resorts meant that the only jobs available were those of room attendants and taxi drivers.

Well before the arrival of the Portuguese, during the 16th century, Anjuna was a bustling port, where Arab merchants would sail in and dhows would drop by. At the time, the hottest commodity was horses – fine Arab horses, which the Deccan chieftains coveted. Times have changed and the horses come by sea no more, but Anjuna's equestrian legacy continues in a convoluted way. One of the most sought-after drugs in Anjuna today is Ketamine, a cheap tranquilliser used for horses.

Indeed, drugs have significantly drawn visitors to Anjuna. Back in the 1960s, hippies descended on the village and began to transform Anjuna. The Westerner with a marijuana pouch and a guitar strapped over a shoulder became a paradigmatic figure around the village. In the early days, all of this was a laid-back affair. But the late 1970s introduced a further evolution: the advent of electricity replaced live jam sessions with electronic sounds, and mild hallucinogens such as cannabis and hashish gave way to more potent and synthetic avenues.

Eventually, as often happens with pioneers, the lounging hippie was displaced by the on-the-edge hipster. From there on, the drugs mafia gained a firm grip over the scene in Anjuna. During the first two decades, hashish vendors had roamed the beaches here, each armed with a gunnysack of ganja procured from the Silent Valley in Kerala. At that point, hippies were more or less the exclusive buyers.   Starting in the 1980s, however, the Anjunkars slowly began to smell the wonders of dope, particularly the money it could fetch. They dumped the traditional fishing net in a pile in the corner and purchased small portable scales, and soon the Anjunkars started talking about tolas, dots, joints and snorts.

The gods are smiling
Let's now head back to the junction near St Michael's Church, and instead take the right-hand route. After negotiating a few sharp curves, we reach a part of Anjuna called Baandh. Here, we can take a look at a phenomenon that lucidly explains how coastal socio-economic mechanisms work. As the name suggests, this ward is situated on a very narrow strip of land, elevated from the fields by a few metres. If you were to pass by this place a half-dozen years ago, chances are that you would have missed Baandh altogether, as there would have been no landmark whatsoever to look for.   Not today. At the end of the baandh there used to be a very small temple.

One crisp winter morning six years ago, when the tourism season was nearing its peak, the villagers extended an invitation to the gods to drop by. The Baandhkars, as the inhabitants of this ward are called, made offerings of kaul-prasad – a ritual in which a deity is invoked to make a decision, and is a divine interpretation of the phrase 'the ball is in His court'. In general, the gods here make their decisions known by way of a falling leaf or petal, which is placed before the idol by the priest. On this particular day, kaul-prasad offering was to decide whether and when a large rave party should be organised, in order to raise money to upgrade the ghumti into a full-fledged temple, complete with a concrete slab and a tiled, domed roof.

As it turns out, the gods smiled on the locals. The rave was successfully held with the blessings of a local politician, and some of the profit was kept aside for the construction of the temple. A few weeks later, the structure was renovated with hashish-sponsored tiles, a cocaine-sponsored slab, and an ecstasy-sponsored domed roof, which beckons travellers as they pass by on their way to Anjuna's equally notorious neighbouring village, Vagator.

Anjuna has been in the news of late, and none of the headlines have been good. The mysterious death – now officially pronounced as murder – of the British teenager Scarlett Keeling has trained some very critical eyes on this small enclave. But come to think of it, Anjuna (and Vagator) has always represented a looming problem, though only a few were ever willing to acknowledge it. The trouble is where such an acknowledgement would need to place the responsibility.

The main issue here is not necessarily about people using drugs. Rather, Anjuna's troubles stem from the fact that the very social fabric of the village is today largely made up of marijuana fibre, with beautifully vivid designs fashioned by the various psychotropic sisters. Indeed, Anjuna is now a community addicted to the wonders of drugs. When the villagers know by heart the slang for different types of dope, such as Aunt Hazel (heroin), Aunt Mary (marijuana), Aunt Nora (cocaine) and Aunt Emma (opium), it is clear that there is a problem here. By now, a large section of perfectly 'respectable' – and vital – social institutions in Anjuna, such as temples, churches, hospitals, as well as police, panchayat and other elected representatives, have been infiltrated by the drug lucre. Mere police action cannot redress these problems; at this point, the community of Anjuna as a whole needs a detoxification.