Anjuna

Anjuna is the coastal setting for a brief turn in Lin’s search for Karla. After a disappointing day asking after her around Goa’s beaches, he finds not the person he seeks but an unexpected host: Dashrant, the owner of the Seashore Restaurant, who turns a final meal into an offer of shelter and continued help.

The Restaurant and Its Host

As the sun sets, Lin’s last conversation of the day is with Dashrant, a young, heavy-set Maharashtrian who owns the Seashore Restaurant in Anjuna. Dashrant prepares a substantial meal of cabbage leaves stuffed with potatoes, green beans with ginger, aubergines with sour green chutney, and crisp-fried okra. Instead of leaving Lin to eat alone, he brings his own plate to the table and joins him. The meal ends with long glasses of locally brewed coconut feni and cashew feni.

Dashrant refuses payment from a foreigner who speaks his native Marathi. He regards Lin’s search for Karla as romantic and distinctly Indian, and offers to guide him by motorcycle to a nearby place to stay. His hospitality is practical as well as generous: he proposes that Lin rest for the night and resume the search the following day with a clear mind.

The House by the Sea

The lodging Dashrant provides is a small, square house made from bamboo, coconut poles, and palm leaves. Lin reaches it by motorcycle along a soft, sandy track between tall palms; the house stands within sight of the restaurant, with a wide view of the dark sea. Inside, candlelight and lamps illuminate a single room with a sand floor, a table and two chairs, a bed with a bare rubber mattress, and a metal rack for clothes. A large water jar contains clean water drawn that day from a local well, and a bottle of coconut feni stands ready on the table.

Dashrant assures Lin that the motorcycle and its rider will be safe because the house is known locally as his. He gives Lin the key to the chain and padlock and tells him to stay until he finds the woman he is looking for. Then he leaves, singing as he walks back among the palms to his restaurant. Lin pulls the motorcycle beside the hut and ties it by a cord to the bed, hoping that any attempt to steal it will wake him before he can fall asleep.

A Pause in the Search

Anjuna does not resolve Lin’s search that evening; it changes its conditions. The first day has brought him through beach restaurants and local networks of moneychangers, drug dealers, guides, thieves, and gigolos, but none of the inquiries has produced a reliable lead. Dashrant’s offer gives him a safe place to stop, sleep, and begin again the next day rather than continue searching in exhaustion.

The scene also makes the coast more than scenery for the search. The palms, sandy track, sea-facing hut, local food, and feni establish a temporary domestic refuge whose security depends on Dashrant’s standing in the area. Anjuna’s role is therefore small but decisive: it offers Lin rest and human assistance without providing the answer he came to find.