I reached Kalanagar bus stop in Bandra to board the overnight Atmaram Volvo for Goa. It was my first time travelling alone in a bus all the way to Goa without telling my parents that I was doing so. In their mind I was with a group of 11 friends. I was travelling because I wanted to do a solo trip to Goa and also planned to meet my boyfriend, Udit, who was posted in Karwar, which is around four hours away from Goa.
While I was waiting for the bus that was scheduled to arrive at 10:30pm, I was frantically looking around for a female companion who might be travelling by the same bus. I looked around and heard a man asking about the Atmaram bus to Goa. He was waiting with his friend who was travelling to Goa. I walked up to the man and asked him whether he and his friend were travelling by the 10:30pm Volvo. He told me that his friend, Luna from Italy, was travelling to Goa and he was just waiting with her for the bus. He introduced me to Luna and it turned out that it was her first time travelling alone in India by an overnight bus to Goa and she was just as desperately looking for a female traveller to feel safe and reassured.
That’s how I met my soul sister, Luna Pagani from Verona, Italy. She is shorter than me, must be around five feet two inches, has curly brown hair and wears glasses quite identical to mine. She rolls her own cigarettes, which was very impressive because she took hardly two minutes, by the clock, to roll one cigarette. Our fear of travelling alone is what got us talking, sharing cigarettes and holding bags in turns while the other used the stinky washrooms of the bus stops.
Luna confessed very shyly that her English is not that great and that turned out to be true. It took me several conversations with her at the bus stand to finally understand and comprehend her accent and words. Once we reached Goa and I introduced her to Udit, all three of us travelled together to Palolem beach in South Goa. She kept thanking me and Udit for giving her a ride to Palolem and opened up a lot more once she was assured of the fact that we are ‘genuine people to help her’, as she said. She told us that she was in India for a college project through AISSEC (Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales) which is a global student organisation. Her project was research and teaching children of slums. She finished her project 11 days early and so for the remaining days she planned to travel and Goa was her first trip. Luna is a waitress in Verona and has a boyfriend whom she’s been dating for five months.
On the drive to Palolem beach, where Luna had booked her stay in a hostel, she kept telling me that she loved the music playing in the car and she will save it on her phone so that when she goes back to Italy she can listen to it and remember India and some ‘special friends’ she made here. I told her that Udit and I constantly fight over the music that will play in the car to which she replied in her Italian accent saying, “You both are too cute, you fight but you also love so much, it’s cute.”
All three of us spent the evening at the Palolem beach, teaching her Hindi words for ‘love’ and she taught us swear words in Italy which Udit and I constantly use with each other even now. After dropping Luna off at the hostel we confirmed the plan for the next day which included showing her Karwar and driving down to Om beach, Gokarna which is in Karnataka. Luna left a text message that night which touched my heart. After spending just few hours with her she felt so close as to wish me goodnight and tell me that she’s glad she met me.
Luna and I spoke a lot after that and found similarities that made us feel as if fate wanted us to meet. She’s been my soul sister from Italy since then and is eagerly waiting to dance at my wedding soon!
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