Goa-II
After we returned from Leh, Ruchi, my eldest daughter -in- law , rang up from London and said that she was coming with grand children on 14th July,09 & that she would like to go for a holiday along with us for about a week during her stay. I therefore requested my other two daughters –in- law, ( Ritsy & Neha), my sons (Amitabh, Siddharth & Parikshit whom we call Pilku, Silku & Babloo respectively at home ), Vikas & Preeti, his wife, to suggest some venues for holiday in place/ places where children, aged 7 & 4 could play and enjoy. Ritsy suggested that we could go for holiday in Goa. But I brushed aside her suggestion on the ground that it’ll be raining there cats & dogs. In fact she was prophetic. Except Neha who suggested some nearby places none else came up with a suggestion. I surfed the net also for a monsoon holiday package.
On 21st June,09 in the supplement of the Indian Express captioned, “Eye”, I came across a detailed account of places which could be visited during monsoon for a holiday. Now we had the following destinations in view for a monsoon holiday in India in the month of July:
1. AMBOLI; in Maharashtra on Green Road to Goa
2. THEKKEDY; in Kerela, Periyar National Park
3. BASTAR; in Chhattisgarh, 300 km from Raipur
4. LEH; in Ladhak
5. SPITI; in Himachal Pradesh, 200 km from Manali
6. THIMPU; in Bhutan
7. Goa.
Out of the above destinations we selected Goa. We had been to Thekkedy in 2006 with grandchildren & stayed in the Spice Village Hotel. Besides us, other guests in the hotel were from Europe, USA, Australia & Far East. These people appeared to be from working class. They were quite fat, chinless, pot-belied with their spouses of matching features. A batch mate of ours, from whom I receive quite a few e-mails, had suggested a quiet holiday in SPITI in Himachal Pradesh, 200 km from Manali or in AMBOLI in Maharashtra on Green Road to Goa.
The holiday this time too was mainly for the two grand children who were coming from London for the vacations. Abhshree is 7yrs and Amolikaa is 4yrs old. The place of stay had to be child friendly. We shortlisted two such places in Goa, namely, Taj Exotica and Hayat. We decided to go for Taj Exotica & booked accommodation for five nights & six days of stay in it. In all we were four adults ( myself, Venita,Pilku, Ruchi) & two grandchildren. The Taj had the provision of a number of child friendly activities. We hired two rooms in a Villa. Taj has 90 Villas and 48 rooms in the main hotel situated in lush green 56 acres. It is in South Goa, an hour’s drive from Panaji. The guests of the hotel were mainly from upper strata of society, both from India and foreign countries.
This was our second visit to Goa from 26th to 30th July this year, earlier being from 13th to 16th February. I have already written a travelogue on February visit. I am not writing a detailed travelogue on this time.
The Taj exotica has in its neighborhood a host of Five Star Hotels, namely, Raddison, Club Mahindra, Dona Silver, Ramda, Holiday Inn, Hayat, Majda, Sita, Leela, besides Baywatch and Cleva Beach, three Star Hotels. The Inter Continental Hotel is the last hotel on the south Goa Beach on the Karnataka boundary. The Taj has a pool each attached to the two rooms of the Villa, 2 ½ feet deep. As soon as we reached the rooms the grand children switched over to their swim suites and jumped into the pools of water splashing it all around. Near the pools they found two baby frogs which they picked up and kept in a glass. These were so small that they could not be more than a day or two old. It was becoming dark and we had to go for dinner. Ruchi persuaded them to say bye-bye to the baby frogs so that they can go back to their mother and have their dinner too.
The hotel has a sliding waterfall into the pool where the children liked to spend most of their time besides running into the sea for a bath. The hotel staff advised us not to enter the sea as during monsoon you very often get jelly fish which can cause immense itching if they touch any part of your body. If the size of the jelly fish is big its touch can be fatal. But the children won’t listen to and will rush to the sea water. On one occasion I was alone with Abhishree & trying to prevent her running into the sea. I got fully drenched. Even my watch got the full impact of the sea waves & later when I had a shower bath I forgot to take it off of my wrist. As a result it is now resting in a watch shop. I don’t know when it will decide to come back to me. It was a watch which KTS had gifted me about five years back. He had brought it from U.K. for 75 pounds. It served me quite well. Now I have changed over to a Titan watch presented to me by a unit of Meghalya Police in a farewell function on my transfer from Meghalya Police to the Ministry of Home Affairs Govt. of India, New Delhi.
The Arabian Sea Benaulim beach along the Taj Exotica is more or less an exclusive beach for its guests. Venita & I used to walk along it everyday. Some times the sea was so rough that its waves went several feet up in the air, scaring you as if they would devour. One early morning at about 4 am I could hear the horrifying sound of the waves from my room giving a feeling as if they would enter the rooms and take us all away. When not so, it was pleasant to walk along the beach.
Near the beach, you have a Lobster shack where you can pick up a bicycle of your choice & size. These are complimentary. Somehow these did not suit the children. They however used them on one or two occasions. I also bicycled in and around the nine hole executive Golf Course on concrete footpath where Buggies of the hotel ran with guests from the reception to villas or one villa to another, or carrying luggage & around the entire property. We also took rides to have an overview of the Taj property. The hotel has tennis court, swimming pool, fitness center, helipad and giant chess board. It is learnt that helipad was constructed for landing of the helicopter of Shri Atal Behari Vajyapayee, the former Prime Minister of India & it is in existence since then. Besides three restaurants, namely, Eugenia (a 24 hour Coffee Shop) Algeria, Li-Bi, there is poolside bar. I had steam bath more or less everyday. Venita had Taj Spa once. The steam bath is complimentary. The Spa is very expensive. As I am a Taj Inner circle member she got a 30% rebate. There is a small cricket pitch also. But the children liked sliding with the water into the pool which is about 3 1/2 feet deep.
One day when I was watching children sliding into the water, Amolikaa came running with an agitated face. I said “ what happened”? She replied “ that boy is not nice to me. I’m going to his mother to tell it. I said “I’ll talk to the boy.” I went to the pool & talked to one of the twin 6 year old decent boys. They immediately apologized and Amolikaa was satisfied with the apology. They again started playing together. I saw Amolikaa pulling one of the two to go with her for sliding together. Amolikaa is highly individualistic and quite sharp. Pilku told me that on another occasion she was carrying shoes in her hands because these got filled up wit sand when she was running around on the beach. A boy of her age asked her “ why are you carrying shoes in your hands”? She said “ because I want to carry them in my hands”. The boy did not ask any more questions.
Abhishree is very affectionate. She always is keen to talk. But the problem is that we do not understand due to her English pronunciation which has local touch. We understand only BBC pronunciation of English language. Very often I get to know her through Pilku & Ruchi. She feels disappointed as she would like to converse but cannot as we do not react properly. We very often react ignorantly. When I am sleeping or meditating she would try to open lids of my eyes, sit with her two legs on my shoulders & over the head. But finding her unable to either awaken or disturb, she will hide our slippers so much so that very often we have to get new slippers from housekeeping. On the day of departure there were at least 8 pairs found from underneath our beds. She is immensely sweet, loving & caring. May God give her enormous happiness & bright future.
Towards the end of our stay in Taj Exotica I got a message in my cell giving the no. of City Bank Credit Card No. of my wife & informing that it had been used for a transaction in the hotel for about Rs. 12,000/-. I was surprised & wondered if some thief had used it. Later I found it had been used by Venita for buying two Sarees from a store in the hotel. I told her that the prices here were at least 30/ 40% more than the market. To which she said, “ may be. But the color, design and fabric of the Sarees are not commonly available in the market”. I could not say anything.
During our 5 nights & 6 days stay in the hotel we had breakfast, lunch & dinner together. It was a long stay as we noticed that the other guests came for a day or two and then left. We saw a number of local and foreign tourists coming and going during our stay. Food had variety. It had Chinese, continental & Indian cuisine. The children had their choices. I invariably had a glass of par magnate juice in the breakfast whereas others had either orange or sweet lime juice. I enjoyed breakfast & food in the company of grand children, son, daughter - in- law & wife after laps of about 2 years. It was in 2007 that we had food together like this when we visited them in 2007 in London. But then the sprit of holiday was missing so far as children were concerned as they were in a hurry to go to the school, Pilku to office. Ruchi was busy in taking care of the household.
After the breakfast children will run around trying to catch butterflies. They will either rush to the beach or change over to swim suits & jump into the pool, sometimes in pools meant for children or even for adults along with my son. They can swim well in deep pools too. Myself & Venita will lie down, sipping tea/coffee/coconut water/juice & watching children play/ swim in the pool. The beverages served on the pool side were all complimentary.
On 28th July Shri Sanjay Sahu, Chief Finance Officer of Frigoglass India (P) Ltd. rang up from Gurgaon informing that the Excise Taxation Officer, Gurgaon ( W) had written for deposit of 50% of due tax as per the orders of the High Court of Punjab & Haryana on 30th May,09. I told him to e-mail the notice of recovery. On receipt of it I talked to Shri KTS Tulsi & discussed with him as to how to go about the matter. I asked if we could go to the High Court for the stay of notice of recovery as the High Court itself had ordered that no recovery will be made except 50% which Frigoglass had agreed to pay. The order of the High Court was contradictory in so far as on one hand it said that assessment for the period may go on but no recovery of tax would be made. It further said that Frigoglass agreed to pay 50% of the tax voluntarily. Shri Tulsi said that we could file the Civil Misc. Application for stay of the Notice of recovery. We drafted the application. But later Shri Tulsi said that as our main Civil Writ Petition itself is on the board and will be taken up on 1st August,09 we may not file the application & that we may reply to the ETO, Gurgaon pointing out that his demand was contrary to the orders of the High Court. It took one full day in the business centre of the hotel drafting & e-mailing the application to Chandigarh for filing. I missed playing with the children on 1 out of the 6 days of stay. Later in conference with Shri Tulsi it was decided that there was no need even to reply & we will deal with the matter on 1st August,09 when it comes up for hearing.
The Taj has an impressive list of child friendly activities. There are special toddler areas besides entertainment all day long at Tex kids. There are computer games, an outside play area, board games and much more such as children movies, leaf painting etc. Then there are bicycles at Lobster shack, golf putting green, table tennis, cricket, soccer, indoor archery & tennis. Pilku took children to PanaJi & gave them a cruise on river Mandovi. The children enjoyed it very much.
On one evening there was a fire display and dance to the Dj tunes in Adega Camoens, bar of the hotel. Children joined in the dance. While Pilku & Ruchi favored dancing by children in public places, this somehow did not go well with me, may be, my values are old. I remember Swami Ram writing in “ Seven Days To Rama” & quite often mentioned by Gurumaa in her discourses that the inculcation of the value system in children is complete by the age of 7. After that it is only cramming & mastering of the facts. The value system of a child guides him/her in the years that follow in his / her life subsequently.
The three wheeled electrically operated well cushioned buggies were a big hit with children.
We enjoyed the stay very much. It reminded me of the days I spent in Mussorie for the Foundational Course on induction in the Indian Police Service : sumptuous meals, horse riding, P.T., monotonous( sometime illuminating) lectures, whispering windows, trekking, picnics, new friendships, shero shairi, love affairs of batch mates etc. The course had over 25% probationers from Allahbad University. The camaraderie still continues. We, retired I.A.S , I.F.S, I.P.S, I.R.S & others Central Service Officers, still meet on second Friday of each month in the Central Services officers Institute Mess over a contributory lunch. Our relationship is now 45 Year old and still growing stronger. We had proposed the celebration of the 45th Anniversary of the 1964 batch at Thimpu. Dago Tshering of Bhutan who had training with us and was ambassador of Bhutan in Delhi for over 10 years invited us to Thimpu for the anniversary. But as most of us are in late 60s and have our own individual programs, the visit to Bhutan did not materialize. We hope to celebrate Golden Anniversary of the batch, though quite a few of the batch mates are no more and may be a few more may go before the batch turns 50.
I’m sorry for being reminiscent. It all came because the enjoyment in the Taj Exotica, Goa with grandchildren was great & carefree.
JAI HO
After we returned from Leh, Ruchi, my eldest daughter -in- law , rang up from London and said that she was coming with grand children on 14th July,09 & that she would like to go for a holiday along with us for about a week during her stay. I therefore requested my other two daughters –in- law, ( Ritsy & Neha), my sons (Amitabh, Siddharth & Parikshit whom we call Pilku, Silku & Babloo respectively at home ), Vikas & Preeti, his wife, to suggest some venues for holiday in place/ places where children, aged 7 & 4 could play and enjoy. Ritsy suggested that we could go for holiday in Goa. But I brushed aside her suggestion on the ground that it’ll be raining there cats & dogs. In fact she was prophetic. Except Neha who suggested some nearby places none else came up with a suggestion. I surfed the net also for a monsoon holiday package.
On 21st June,09 in the supplement of the Indian Express captioned, “Eye”, I came across a detailed account of places which could be visited during monsoon for a holiday. Now we had the following destinations in view for a monsoon holiday in India in the month of July:
1. AMBOLI; in Maharashtra on Green Road to Goa
2. THEKKEDY; in Kerela, Periyar National Park
3. BASTAR; in Chhattisgarh, 300 km from Raipur
4. LEH; in Ladhak
5. SPITI; in Himachal Pradesh, 200 km from Manali
6. THIMPU; in Bhutan
7. Goa.
Out of the above destinations we selected Goa. We had been to Thekkedy in 2006 with grandchildren & stayed in the Spice Village Hotel. Besides us, other guests in the hotel were from Europe, USA, Australia & Far East. These people appeared to be from working class. They were quite fat, chinless, pot-belied with their spouses of matching features. A batch mate of ours, from whom I receive quite a few e-mails, had suggested a quiet holiday in SPITI in Himachal Pradesh, 200 km from Manali or in AMBOLI in Maharashtra on Green Road to Goa.
The holiday this time too was mainly for the two grand children who were coming from London for the vacations. Abhshree is 7yrs and Amolikaa is 4yrs old. The place of stay had to be child friendly. We shortlisted two such places in Goa, namely, Taj Exotica and Hayat. We decided to go for Taj Exotica & booked accommodation for five nights & six days of stay in it. In all we were four adults ( myself, Venita,Pilku, Ruchi) & two grandchildren. The Taj had the provision of a number of child friendly activities. We hired two rooms in a Villa. Taj has 90 Villas and 48 rooms in the main hotel situated in lush green 56 acres. It is in South Goa, an hour’s drive from Panaji. The guests of the hotel were mainly from upper strata of society, both from India and foreign countries.
This was our second visit to Goa from 26th to 30th July this year, earlier being from 13th to 16th February. I have already written a travelogue on February visit. I am not writing a detailed travelogue on this time.
The Taj exotica has in its neighborhood a host of Five Star Hotels, namely, Raddison, Club Mahindra, Dona Silver, Ramda, Holiday Inn, Hayat, Majda, Sita, Leela, besides Baywatch and Cleva Beach, three Star Hotels. The Inter Continental Hotel is the last hotel on the south Goa Beach on the Karnataka boundary. The Taj has a pool each attached to the two rooms of the Villa, 2 ½ feet deep. As soon as we reached the rooms the grand children switched over to their swim suites and jumped into the pools of water splashing it all around. Near the pools they found two baby frogs which they picked up and kept in a glass. These were so small that they could not be more than a day or two old. It was becoming dark and we had to go for dinner. Ruchi persuaded them to say bye-bye to the baby frogs so that they can go back to their mother and have their dinner too.
The hotel has a sliding waterfall into the pool where the children liked to spend most of their time besides running into the sea for a bath. The hotel staff advised us not to enter the sea as during monsoon you very often get jelly fish which can cause immense itching if they touch any part of your body. If the size of the jelly fish is big its touch can be fatal. But the children won’t listen to and will rush to the sea water. On one occasion I was alone with Abhishree & trying to prevent her running into the sea. I got fully drenched. Even my watch got the full impact of the sea waves & later when I had a shower bath I forgot to take it off of my wrist. As a result it is now resting in a watch shop. I don’t know when it will decide to come back to me. It was a watch which KTS had gifted me about five years back. He had brought it from U.K. for 75 pounds. It served me quite well. Now I have changed over to a Titan watch presented to me by a unit of Meghalya Police in a farewell function on my transfer from Meghalya Police to the Ministry of Home Affairs Govt. of India, New Delhi.
The Arabian Sea Benaulim beach along the Taj Exotica is more or less an exclusive beach for its guests. Venita & I used to walk along it everyday. Some times the sea was so rough that its waves went several feet up in the air, scaring you as if they would devour. One early morning at about 4 am I could hear the horrifying sound of the waves from my room giving a feeling as if they would enter the rooms and take us all away. When not so, it was pleasant to walk along the beach.
Near the beach, you have a Lobster shack where you can pick up a bicycle of your choice & size. These are complimentary. Somehow these did not suit the children. They however used them on one or two occasions. I also bicycled in and around the nine hole executive Golf Course on concrete footpath where Buggies of the hotel ran with guests from the reception to villas or one villa to another, or carrying luggage & around the entire property. We also took rides to have an overview of the Taj property. The hotel has tennis court, swimming pool, fitness center, helipad and giant chess board. It is learnt that helipad was constructed for landing of the helicopter of Shri Atal Behari Vajyapayee, the former Prime Minister of India & it is in existence since then. Besides three restaurants, namely, Eugenia (a 24 hour Coffee Shop) Algeria, Li-Bi, there is poolside bar. I had steam bath more or less everyday. Venita had Taj Spa once. The steam bath is complimentary. The Spa is very expensive. As I am a Taj Inner circle member she got a 30% rebate. There is a small cricket pitch also. But the children liked sliding with the water into the pool which is about 3 1/2 feet deep.
One day when I was watching children sliding into the water, Amolikaa came running with an agitated face. I said “ what happened”? She replied “ that boy is not nice to me. I’m going to his mother to tell it. I said “I’ll talk to the boy.” I went to the pool & talked to one of the twin 6 year old decent boys. They immediately apologized and Amolikaa was satisfied with the apology. They again started playing together. I saw Amolikaa pulling one of the two to go with her for sliding together. Amolikaa is highly individualistic and quite sharp. Pilku told me that on another occasion she was carrying shoes in her hands because these got filled up wit sand when she was running around on the beach. A boy of her age asked her “ why are you carrying shoes in your hands”? She said “ because I want to carry them in my hands”. The boy did not ask any more questions.
Abhishree is very affectionate. She always is keen to talk. But the problem is that we do not understand due to her English pronunciation which has local touch. We understand only BBC pronunciation of English language. Very often I get to know her through Pilku & Ruchi. She feels disappointed as she would like to converse but cannot as we do not react properly. We very often react ignorantly. When I am sleeping or meditating she would try to open lids of my eyes, sit with her two legs on my shoulders & over the head. But finding her unable to either awaken or disturb, she will hide our slippers so much so that very often we have to get new slippers from housekeeping. On the day of departure there were at least 8 pairs found from underneath our beds. She is immensely sweet, loving & caring. May God give her enormous happiness & bright future.
Towards the end of our stay in Taj Exotica I got a message in my cell giving the no. of City Bank Credit Card No. of my wife & informing that it had been used for a transaction in the hotel for about Rs. 12,000/-. I was surprised & wondered if some thief had used it. Later I found it had been used by Venita for buying two Sarees from a store in the hotel. I told her that the prices here were at least 30/ 40% more than the market. To which she said, “ may be. But the color, design and fabric of the Sarees are not commonly available in the market”. I could not say anything.
During our 5 nights & 6 days stay in the hotel we had breakfast, lunch & dinner together. It was a long stay as we noticed that the other guests came for a day or two and then left. We saw a number of local and foreign tourists coming and going during our stay. Food had variety. It had Chinese, continental & Indian cuisine. The children had their choices. I invariably had a glass of par magnate juice in the breakfast whereas others had either orange or sweet lime juice. I enjoyed breakfast & food in the company of grand children, son, daughter - in- law & wife after laps of about 2 years. It was in 2007 that we had food together like this when we visited them in 2007 in London. But then the sprit of holiday was missing so far as children were concerned as they were in a hurry to go to the school, Pilku to office. Ruchi was busy in taking care of the household.
After the breakfast children will run around trying to catch butterflies. They will either rush to the beach or change over to swim suits & jump into the pool, sometimes in pools meant for children or even for adults along with my son. They can swim well in deep pools too. Myself & Venita will lie down, sipping tea/coffee/coconut water/juice & watching children play/ swim in the pool. The beverages served on the pool side were all complimentary.
On 28th July Shri Sanjay Sahu, Chief Finance Officer of Frigoglass India (P) Ltd. rang up from Gurgaon informing that the Excise Taxation Officer, Gurgaon ( W) had written for deposit of 50% of due tax as per the orders of the High Court of Punjab & Haryana on 30th May,09. I told him to e-mail the notice of recovery. On receipt of it I talked to Shri KTS Tulsi & discussed with him as to how to go about the matter. I asked if we could go to the High Court for the stay of notice of recovery as the High Court itself had ordered that no recovery will be made except 50% which Frigoglass had agreed to pay. The order of the High Court was contradictory in so far as on one hand it said that assessment for the period may go on but no recovery of tax would be made. It further said that Frigoglass agreed to pay 50% of the tax voluntarily. Shri Tulsi said that we could file the Civil Misc. Application for stay of the Notice of recovery. We drafted the application. But later Shri Tulsi said that as our main Civil Writ Petition itself is on the board and will be taken up on 1st August,09 we may not file the application & that we may reply to the ETO, Gurgaon pointing out that his demand was contrary to the orders of the High Court. It took one full day in the business centre of the hotel drafting & e-mailing the application to Chandigarh for filing. I missed playing with the children on 1 out of the 6 days of stay. Later in conference with Shri Tulsi it was decided that there was no need even to reply & we will deal with the matter on 1st August,09 when it comes up for hearing.
The Taj has an impressive list of child friendly activities. There are special toddler areas besides entertainment all day long at Tex kids. There are computer games, an outside play area, board games and much more such as children movies, leaf painting etc. Then there are bicycles at Lobster shack, golf putting green, table tennis, cricket, soccer, indoor archery & tennis. Pilku took children to PanaJi & gave them a cruise on river Mandovi. The children enjoyed it very much.
On one evening there was a fire display and dance to the Dj tunes in Adega Camoens, bar of the hotel. Children joined in the dance. While Pilku & Ruchi favored dancing by children in public places, this somehow did not go well with me, may be, my values are old. I remember Swami Ram writing in “ Seven Days To Rama” & quite often mentioned by Gurumaa in her discourses that the inculcation of the value system in children is complete by the age of 7. After that it is only cramming & mastering of the facts. The value system of a child guides him/her in the years that follow in his / her life subsequently.
The three wheeled electrically operated well cushioned buggies were a big hit with children.
We enjoyed the stay very much. It reminded me of the days I spent in Mussorie for the Foundational Course on induction in the Indian Police Service : sumptuous meals, horse riding, P.T., monotonous( sometime illuminating) lectures, whispering windows, trekking, picnics, new friendships, shero shairi, love affairs of batch mates etc. The course had over 25% probationers from Allahbad University. The camaraderie still continues. We, retired I.A.S , I.F.S, I.P.S, I.R.S & others Central Service Officers, still meet on second Friday of each month in the Central Services officers Institute Mess over a contributory lunch. Our relationship is now 45 Year old and still growing stronger. We had proposed the celebration of the 45th Anniversary of the 1964 batch at Thimpu. Dago Tshering of Bhutan who had training with us and was ambassador of Bhutan in Delhi for over 10 years invited us to Thimpu for the anniversary. But as most of us are in late 60s and have our own individual programs, the visit to Bhutan did not materialize. We hope to celebrate Golden Anniversary of the batch, though quite a few of the batch mates are no more and may be a few more may go before the batch turns 50.
I’m sorry for being reminiscent. It all came because the enjoyment in the Taj Exotica, Goa with grandchildren was great & carefree.
JAI HO
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