It is around midnight when we pass Colva Cemetery.
I had arrived in Goa earlier that November evening and after settling into the service apartment I was staying in, head to Colva Beach for dinner with my friend. A delicious dinner of Italian food later, it is time for a leisurely stroll back to the apartment under a moonlit sky and a gentle sea breeze accompanying us.
We pass restaurants that are still serving dinner, tourists walking back to their hotels, sleepy dogs, shops shut tight… And then quite suddenly, a large angel looms out of the semi darkness, startling me for a second. That’s when I realise that we are passing a graveyard, the Colva Cemetery, and the “angel’ was part of a tomb.
We stop to look over the low walls of the graveyard. Of course, we can’t see much in the darkness except for ghostly outlines of tombstones and tomb sculptures. Also visible is a rather sinister and spooky-looking barn like structure with no doors or gates. Since the moonlight doesn’t penetrate inside, it is shrouded in darkness.
“What’s that?” I ask. “It can’t be the church, can it?”
“No. The church is behind us, and across the road. Maybe a chapel?” my friend suggests.
“Maybe. But why is it so dark?” I shiver involuntarily.
“Let’s come back tomorrow morning and find out, shall we?”
We come back in the morning and see one of the most beautiful graveyards that I have come across.
Continue reading “The cemetery at Colva”
Not for me though. I visited you 4 times between 1986 and 2013, and you have always been a destination for me, and memorable for all the wrong reasons (for the first 3 trips, at least). I wasn’t impressed with you after the first trip or the second or the third trip… As for the fourth trip, we’ll come to that a little later. Let me tell you a little bit about the first three trips.
For me, police stations and hospitals are places that are to be seen only when needed and ignored when not needed. Such places are good to have nearby, but not too close, if you know what I mean.
My Favourite Things 