Well, I only started this blogsite in order to write to 8 Finger Eddie of Anjuna Beach Goa (he seems to have blogsite on this system too), who I first met in 1972, and then again in 73, 74, 75. But there is no need to write to Eddie, just to add some thoughts here.
In 1972, I lived in Baga, a river and a promontory away from Anjuna beach. Getting to Anjuna meant wading or swimming across the river, climbing up past the then disused Catholic monastery and then following goat tracks along the cliffs and above them until ... there came into view the long palm fringed beach of Anjuna stretching into the hazy distance.
In those days Anjuna was thronging with hippie type folk and some very tolerant local Goan people--who got on with their lives harvesting coconut trees, growing papaya plants, and keeping goats and chickens. It was a beautiful place then, and pretty unspoilt. Already, though there were quite a few beach bars and cafes, simple, but of extremely good quality. These were pleasant meeting places, though rather smoky at times.
Anyway, in the midst of this paradisical beach setting there lived Eight Finger Eddie, around whom a mythology was already woven, or who had already woven a mythology around himself—which it was it’s hard to say. Eddie was almost universally accepted as a person who embodied the more contemporary aspects of Anjuna beach life.
One day, as I recall, he wanted to go into the nearby town of Panjim (Panaji). But not wishing or able to pay his bus fare (it was perhaps a matter of principle), Eight Finger Eddie climbed up on the roof of the bus and refused to come down. The driver, however, would not move the bus until Eight Finger Eddie descended. For a little while, the spirit of commerce and the spirit of laissez faire clashed on this idyllic day. But in due course, Eddie (presumably accepting his karma) descended, and a fellow passenger paid his fare.
Now, here is the odd thing. During the journey to Panajim, the bus's front wheel (or this is the story, anyway) clipped the verge of the road and tipped into a paddy field, landing on its roof.
Now here is the moral of the tale. If Eight Finger Eddie had been on the roof of the bus, he might have been badly injured. But because he was inside, he survived, and with the other fortunate passengers walked away from the incident. So, Eddie had yielded to the protestations of a bus driver: and his humility saved him from harm.
This was only one of many incidents that happened on Anjuna beach -- I think Eddie himself told me this account, as we sat on the balcony of a ruined house on Anjuna. It was a long time ago though ... and the story is as I remember it.
Leaving aside this incident there were many other happenings, some sad, some beautiful, some petty, some ugly. I thought to myself often: here we are in an earthly paradise and yet ... so many people are troubled or disaffected. The beauty and tranquility of the place had a funny effect of bringing out who we--up until that time at least--had become.
There were also full moon parties at which musicians of great talent, reasonable talent, and little talent, would 'jam' for up to ten hours through the night. It was jazz style free play, in which a bass rhythm supplied the line round which lead guitars and saxophones wove creative or bizarre melodies. Incidentally, the electrical generator for those occasions had been gifted by the Rolling Stones, who probably supplied the instruments too. Most inhabitants of the beach danced from dusk until dawn in those strange shape-describing hand-waving, body-gyrating, gesture-indicating movements that hippies used to do. What happened to all that?
Apart from such things, there were always frisbee playing Americans around who added a wealthy lustre to the beach. Most of the French hippies were extremely poor or penniless. But the men’s beards were convincingly wild, and their hair bleached by the sun--which looked authentic to Anjuna. There was also a wonderfully romantic Italian man who chanted with operatic voice through the palm trees, clad in a flowing robe. He had genuine talent, and most people accepted his voice as a soothing incantation at dusk, as the sun trembled on the ocean horizon and the temperature began to dip.
But that was another country ... and long ago ...
