IT'S ICHTHYOSIS AWARENESS MONTH!

That time in Goa

For starters, I love travelling, I love long road trips with stupid childhood songs to sing along while chilling in our car as if we came straight out of Zindagi na Milegi Dobara or Dil Chahata hai. There's just something about being able to halt at every little town and restaurant, enjoy the scenery, click pictures, talk to the locals, you know? That was what this trip was. It was so much fun, imagine covering almost the whole of the western coast! 

Like every journey has its bumps our trip also had a bump, our car wasn't functioning properly. Thank god, we were close to Pune. We were to stop there for just a day and continue but instead of a day, we hung out with dad's friend, watched tons of movies, ate a lot, helped them build cute little nests of wood for cute little birdies for two days. The second day, dad told us the car will be ready by evening and we could leave the next day, which coincidentally turned out to be Diwali. Our Diwali was spent in a car for 12 long hours, when we finally reached Dapoli. In Dapoli, there was this fort that we'd wanted to see but sadly we arrived after the closing time and had to settle for the fish market on the beach where the fort was. And that was how we went on till Goa (getting on ferries once in a while from Ganpatipule). 

And the time arrived when we were to enter the borders of Goa. It was so beautiful, the sun shined brightly in the sky, the palm trees were swaying along the command of the wind, I was captured by its charm and absolutely left speechless. The goan air even made me do the hand wave thing from the window. I turned off my music for god's sake and I never do that! I was infatuated, enraptured, beguiled, spell bound by its allure so much that even the fanciest of the words aren't enough. We stayed at my aunt's place, ate a lot of fishies, hung out at a new beach almost everyday, ate some more fishies and bebinca ( a holiday favourite), even hunted for Sarah Todd's beach restaurant and ended up chilling at the beach (AGAIN!) but it was all worth it, the sea water felt so good against skin and helped in kind of making it look fresh. After visiting a ton of beaches, we decided to stopover at some churches, one of them that I remember vividly was, Basilica of Bom Jesus. It was the mummy preserved there, that attracted us but it isn't one of the reasons why I remember that church.

That day, the sun was doing us bad, it was burning in there. It was so freaking hot! My face was all blotchy and I had little white spots forming on it but I was so ready to tour the entire church including the museum. While entering the church I saw a shady, judgemental looking woman staring at me, no offence but through the years I have come across and come to know judgemental glares very closely. Obviously, I walked further, ignoring her gaze when she came out of nowhere and bumped into me and her eyes held utter and pure disgust. Despite her age that was very immature of her, I was so prepared to knock some sense into her head but mom and dad as always calmed me down. That is how we went about the whole property, learnt new things, sat for a while, got sweaty, prayed a little, got sweaty again and the moment came when I saw a boy. He looked as if he was a year or two younger than me, now don't get ideas in your little heads but when I saw him, I was sort of relieved. I did not like him but I did sort of, kind of like him because he as well had Ichthyosis. Why? Well... To know that someone like you after all DOES exist even though you've seen tons of pictures but seeing someone in front of you is ineffable. I immediately pointed him to my parents and collectively we decided to speak to them. It wasn't the most interesting conversation of all time but I got to know a handful of things about someone who is somewhat similar to me.

We got to know that he was from Agra and the sea water cleansed his skin as well! His mom even told us what she uses and what she does to make his life kind of easy. Knowing about her schedule, HIS schedule was so relatable. I checked every one of them off in my head. And that's why I'd never forget that time in Goa.