Going, Going, Go-aah

Goa < 2075, India's first live, bilingual novel, is set in a futuristic Goa under corporate rule where corruption and environmental degradation are rampant

- Mayabhushan Nagvenkar

THE first indication of the presence of a subterranean habitat in Go-aah is its odour.

It is the smell of thousands of people living underground, in poorly ventilated close confines and the reek of slow-moving streams of warm sewage flowing through inbuilt canals, combined with the amalgamated stale stench of years of human sweat, that cakes the dimly lit underground walls and passages.

Some of the subterranean habitats, like those in the mining areas, are housed in hollowed-out cavities of spent mining pits. Others, like the Parra cavern, have been dug deep and wide into the earth. Some of them are several hundred metres deep below the surface, spread over a few kilometres. This particular cavern accommodates subterraneans from Mapusa and nearby villages.

Sandeep is frisked by the Bratva guards after he steps out of the metro and makes his way to the cavern's entrance. He crushes a small ball of perfumed gel and smears it near his nostrils to beat the foul odour. It's about nine in the morning. Hundreds of hairless and weary subterraneans trudge to the metro station to board their respective Rust Red rakes to work. Sandeep is one of the few people walking into the cavern, but he is the only one sporting hair. At the barricaded gate, he places his press card in a scanner. The gate opens. Media credentials could still get you access to the subterranean caverns.

He steps into a gigantic elevator, one from a network of large, crudely constructed metal platforms that glide up and down the cavern's length, ferrying inhabitants to their respective levels.

Sandeep steps off the elevator at the least-inhabited, bottom-most level. He is the only one to alight there. He walks into a dark tunnel that snakes its way deeper into the underground's deepest bowels. After walking through the narrow tunnel for a couple of minutes, Sandeep is relieved when he sees a light flicker at a distance.