THE FIRST FEW days I stayed in Dona Paula, I was having a really hard time finding the beaches I’d heard about. My companions and I would walk down the dusty streets, but the roads seemed to curve away from the water at the last minute. We walked for hours in the heat until we reached the end. It wasn’t a beach. There was a jetty, a juice store and plenty of people, but it seemed to be a site used for commercial fishing, unsightly and uninspiring. We stood at the water and looked back the way we came; there were two beautiful-looking beaches in the direction of our accommodation. But they remained elusive, slipping out of sight on our return.

I was in India as part of literary commons!, a cultural-exchange program between Aboriginal Australian writers and Dalit writers. My companions were Jared Thomas, Nicole Watson and Mridula Nath Chakraborty. We were guests at the Goa Arts and Literary Festival. There were creative types from all over staying at the International Centre and the place was buzzing.