India - Day 16

I drove in Goa. They prefer to put the steering on the wrong side of the car here. Left turns are innocuous. Right turns cut through oncoming traffic. The car I have is a small little red Suzuki thing. It has three gears: Drive, Reverse, and Neutral. When you park, you put it in Neutral and lift the brakes. If you forget to lift the brakes, your car drifts into the ocean.

All the roads here are roughly the width of four fingers. They are all two-way roads. There are no rules. Motorbikes and scooters swarm the streets like insects flying back to the hive. Giant cows slowly trek up to wherever the fuck they’re trying to go. Dogs trot up and down everywhere. I am in my new car, listening to Paul Simon as the world plays out.

All of a sudden, it is dark. Hours have passed and now I’m on my way to a music show that’s an hour inland. I’m alone in my car, swerving through hairpin curves, and I feel acutely aware that no one in the world knows where I am. Everything is unfamiliar except Paul Simon’s voice. But even the lightness of his music fails to soothe me. I wonder out loud what I’m doing.