Frog: 1 Poetry: 0

A report on my AirBnB experience in Goa

On the Airbnb site when I searched for a place in Moira, there was a photograph of what looked liked a small pool. On its surface were reflected the upside down lines of coconut palm trees. The site also carried photographs taken of exotic birds with fantastic plumage. And a couple of photographs of what looked like an elegant studio.

If I said that only one of the images turned out to be even close to reality which one would it be?

I don’t want to cultivate suspense. There indeed was cement structure filled with water (“a plunge pool” that the host said was for my exclusive use—but to do what exactly? why would I risk life and limb by setting foot on the mud-and-algae-covered surface?) that I used to visit in the mornings to remove the leaves that had fallen overnight. I told myself that I was participating in a Zen-like activity and this would lead me to a higher form of consciousness that would, in turn, release me from the misery of my living situation. I found peace for a moment or two while using a metal net to extract a leaf from the water’s surface but then my undisciplined mind would turn to urgent questions like the following one: when Airbnb asks you to rate your experience by clicking on a given number of stars, one to five, what is one to do when the place deserves no star at all?

To keep some hold on reality, the host could have put up pictures of the shoddy studio taken maybe within the last decade. A close up of the dust and grime, the dust that covered the older dust. Or pictures of the bathroom-plus-kitchen which had all the charm and the facilities of a gardener’s shed. This particular structure was rickety, perhaps a DYI project, an ancient DYI project because dust and rust fell and coated all surfaces, and the appliances appeared as old as our tired republic itself. (The tight, uncomfortable proximity of the kitchen and toilet is revealed by the placement by the host of the dish detergent and the toilet-bowl cleaner right next to each other. I didn’t know whether the sponge was to be used to clean dishes or the toilet and left it untouched. Perhaps the reality was that my host has a revolutionary, anti-casteist belief in blurring the boundaries between filth and food. Who would have thought that this overweight Punjabi with a fake accent could possibly be a closeted Ambedkarite? Illogical thoughts like these would flit across my deranged mind and chasten it.)

I didn’t see the colorful birds whose photographs the host had put up on the Airbnb site but I’m not complaining about that. I didn’t want birds. I wanted a soap dish. I wanted a place to put my soap when I showered. (Insult upon injury: there was a used Dettol soap near the sink, still a little damp, waiting for me when I checked into the Airbnb.) And I wanted to be able to hang the towel. And oh, what would it have been like to place my bare feet on a small rug or even a dry towel when I had steppd out of the shower. But there was no extra towel. There was nothing. So, taking care not to slip, I watched my feet leaving prints in the red dust that had blown in all day.

A calm mother and her litter inhabited the host’s garage space which abutted my quarters. The puppies made soft whining noises when I passed; they barely moved because, unlike me, they were satisfied with their living conditions. I felt tender and solicitous toward them.

On my second night, however, sudden snarls and barking erupted outside my window. I didn’t open the door to investigate. The next morning I saw that the puppies were gone. I didn’t see the mother for a bit and then she appeared. The host said he didn’t know what had happened to the pups—someone took them, he said and added, and this means that they will now have a proper home.

Proper home! How incongruous the words sounded from my host’s lips.

See above, during the golden hour, the light in the shower section, the green leaves of the money-plant curling toward the tin roof. Under that roof, life teemed. I’d come in and see creatures bobbing in the toilet bowl. On the damp walls were other creatures: now a snail, now a cockroach, now a home gecko, now a spider. One day the host gave me eggs to cook and when I turned on the stove, smoke rose from the saucepan. Why the smoke? Close examination revealed that the pan was coated with ants. Alas, a cremation was underway of tiny ant bodies.

On the first night, I had been alarmed by the appearance of a frog. It clung to the edge of the bathroom mirror, as if it was trying to check out its appearance. My alarm had dissipated by the next night because the tiny creature didn’t hop around and remained close to the sink and faucet. (Was it soothed by the leaking faucet? Another feature of this Airbnb. There were two faucets and both leaked. Perhaps for the frog the leak resembled a waterfall.) At night when I went to the toilet I was often concerned that the sudden intense light might bother the frog; on the other hand, I needed the light to make sure that no snakes had slithered in to devour the creatures creeping or crawling or flying inside. I compromised by using my phone torch. The frog was never not there during the nighttime, my sweet companion. The two of us had developed an understanding; one could even go so far as to say that we had become friends.

The little frog, like a figure in a fairy story, was the best part of my wrteched Airbnb experience. I had come to Moira to do creative work but so often I found myself on my bed in the dark writing angry letters to the gods of Airbnb. I had books to read, I wanted to draw, but I spent an awful amount of time trying to find words to mentally describe just how horrible the place really was. My journal has lines like the following: “I just called the host to say that I had showered in the morning and the water has still not drained.”

I simmered and raged.

I was paying around four thousand rupees each night for this space, just a little less than what I had paid for a sleek space in Bandra East in Bombay. Why such disparity? The dump didn’t merit a payment of forty dollars each night; ten dollars would be about right, even twelve would be too much. I kept wondering what was this host really thinking. He seemed untroubled by any knowledge of how shabby his setup was. Was he just fooling me or was he also fooling himself? I asked him one afternoon when our paths crossed what he did to occupy his days. He said he had been a hotelier but now it was mostly poetry. Poetry! There is the final proof, if such proof was needed, that literature doesn’t make you a better person.

I’d have such thoughts and then I’d have an encounter with the frog and I’d begin to calm down. I want to clarify that I wasn’t like the condemned prisoner who makes friends with the mice in his cell; instead, it seemed the frog and I were fellow creatures existing together in some space outside the lies and deceptions of the Airbnb system. What I’m trying to say is that in the presence of my friend the frog I found harmony; I always tried to cultivate silence, maybe even serenity.

On my last day in Goa, I wheeled out the red scooter I had hired. I was going to return it to the rental company. Just as I was putting on my helmet I heard a familiar sound. It was the slightly high-pitched intermittent whining of a puppy. Where was that sound coming from? In a few moments, the mother emerged from the end of a covered gutter. I understood that the dog thief had perhaps only taken one of the puppies and the mother had decided to hide her remaining puppies in the gutter. It wasn’t my place right then to express my admiration for her fierce animal intelligence but I rejoiced in it and moved on.