Mapsa Road

The Mapsa Road – Text by Torsten Schlüter

Mapsa Road, a small road in southwest India, connects the village of Anjuna with the lively district town of Mapusa, popularly known as Mapsa.

Along the route, gleaming white cathedrals are a reminder of the Portuguese’s former missionary zeal. Vasco da Gama landed on this coast when he discovered the sea route to India 500 years ago.

Again and again, villas from the colonial era emerge from the green in bright turquoise, ochre, white and blue. Artistic carvings adorn the windows and doors. The buildings are fronted by verandas supported by lavish columns. Wide steps lead from the verandas into overgrown gardens with ancient cashew and mango trees.

In some gardens, instead of colorful villas, there are blackened ruins, half submerged in the jungle and overgrown with tree roots.

There are small chapels or equally small Hindu temples at road junctions. Catholics and Hindus share the same faith.

The scenery changes. Half-ruined, shed-like dwellings made of sheet metal and palm straw now huddle on the roadside. Women with bundles of wood, water containers or bowls of sand on their heads pass by.
Psychedelic sounds emanate from a ruin. It is teeming with two-wheelers. Some gypsy women have laid out rugs on the floor. The women fire up their kerosene stoves. They offer omelettes and chai, fruit and cakes on their carpet islands.

The “mapsalas”, those short, steep bumps that force all rolling vehicles to slow down if they are not to catapult their occupants through the ceiling, repeatedly slow down the flow of traffic.

Nevertheless, Mapsa Road feels increasingly hectic.

After an ascending bend, the road becomes much louder and narrower. The air is also getting thinner. Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of the typical Indian traffic bustle. Poor dwellings, tiny grocer’s stores and workshops are now packed closely together. The heaps of garbage are smoking between the piles of scrap metal at the side of the road. My 500cc stew chugs royally through the hustle and bustle of thousands of two-wheelers, three-wheelers, cars, buses and trucks. Including all kinds of creatures. Exhaust fumes and burning garbage complement each other and form acrid mixtures that attack the mouth, nose and eyes. Breathing becomes more difficult. A scarf pulled over half the face should prevent worse. The honking and the swelling noise of the engines pound in your ears.

More and more road courses are flowing into Mapsa Road. The stream moves slower and slower and turns into a viscous heap. In the pile, it pushes, it jostles, it falters and yet it moves. No one can explain how. Is the same. At some point, the big goal, the Mapsa market, is reached. Now things are getting even tighter. The supreme discipline begins. Circling the market. Spotting a shoulder-wide parking space. Until another two-wheeler releases them at some point.

Then the work begins.