Lobo Lobo and de Luckwashdips Islands

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Lobo Lobo, my cable TV technician came over - he looked exhausted, he looked sleep deprived, he looked overwhelmed.

"Where are you coming from?" I asked, concerned.

"Goa," he said gloomily.

"Goa? Why so gloomy? You should be joyous, happy, relaxed, instead you're looking unhappy, Lobo Lobo, how can it be?"

"Dikuna men, if you knew wot wot all has happened to me in de last two days, even you would look like dis men, ok! Blinking ordeal, che."

"Tell me from the beginning, then," I asked, fascinated.

"So, about a mont ago my family decided to celebrate my grand uncle Socrates Pimenta Albuquerque Lobo's 106th burrday - de old blighter likes de beach, and also likes looking at bikini clad dames, so we tought why not plan sumting eggsotic - my Insta reel idiot son suggested Maldives fust, ‘Chalo dad dey have sooperb islands, like'. But de costs was too much, sky rocket, so den sumone said let's try dis wochyoucall, Luckwashdips Islands. We booked all de tickets and hotels from my turd cuzzin, Crysalis Gomes, who owns a travel agency, ‘Round De World in 65 Days Travels'. Everyting was hunky donkey. D-Day arrives, we are to fly from Mumbai to Kochi and den connect onto Luckwashdips. All all different members of de family, were be foregathering directly in Luckwashdip islands.

So we go to de airport, full family… me, my better-half Myrtle, my duffer son Ronaldo, my anorexic vegan dotter Cinderella, my Lalita Powa mudder-in-law Esmeralda. At de check-in counter, deyy tell dat de flight to Kochi is delayed… wen we asked how long dey said, "We cannot tell". "Wot men", Myrtle said. "‘ow you can be dis vague…'"

And so we wait n wait, twiddling our tumbs, one hours, two hours, finally after ten hours, we finally take off. We have hardly gone into de air, when dat pilot tells to us on de speaker, we cannot land in to Kochi becoz of some visibility problem, we are forced to land in Goa. So we tought, chalo fun will become in Goa - my son says he will attend some sunburn music festival in Arambol, no problem, we can go to my friend Cajetan Cervantes Miguel Nunes deadlo restaurant dat serves best Lobsters… and also Xacuti. My mout is watering, men.

Den de news gets worse - as we about to get off de plane in Goa, de dam air hostess tells to us, dat we cannot leave de airline becoz of some tech problem wid de aerobridge. So we are stuck inside de aeroplane widout food, widout water, widout aircon.

Worst ting is, my wife toh forgot all de food ‘potlis' she was carrying in de Uber in Mumbai, de prawn wafers, the mini chorizo paos, so all we had to eat was all de vegan food of Cinderella, and dat mad mudder-in-law eating my head only.

Jest imagine we are in de sea food and pork capital of India and we're stuck in a plane, like being in jail uuufff!"

Lobo Lobo was looking flustered, his Hawaiian-Goan shirt now bathed in sweat.

"Dis torture den continued… we are sweating and huffing and puffing in de plane, finally we take off and land in Kochi. Over dere, we are told dat we are unable to go to Luckwashdip dat day, for some technical reasons - so dey offload us, we have to spend one night in Kochi, in some airport hotel, and we can collect food packets in de bus! Den my Myrtle went total pagal.

In de bus, she told to everyone, we are not going back to de terminal, we will take our food packets and eat dem on de tarmac, so she made everyone sit down and eat, dere and den, munching dose sandwiches and juice on the tarmac."

"I hear you, Lobo Lobo", I said.

"Jes imagine Dikuna men, I have travelled from Mumbai to Goa to Mysore to Kochi to Luckwashdips to Kochi to Goa to Mumbai in two days and never left de airport!"

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com