Neither going nor gone, Goa is evoking a groan
It’s been a Goa-filled new year’s week for me even though I am still freezing in Delhi’s bitter cold. It’s just that I am getting news and views from the coastal state enough to generate some heat in this awful weather.
First, I saw an Instagram post in which one of those who treat the social media app as an evangelical pulpit announced Goa is not what it used to be: hotels and taxis are outrageously expensive, and other costs are up, too. Indeed, a conversation starter on Goa these days is often not about its pleasant environs and deep culture, but how you are at the mercy of arbitrary local cab cartels.
I posted that Goa has only 110 km of India’s 7,500-km coastline, and yet it succeeds as a tourist destination because of its real estate hype, laissez-faire lifestyle, brand value and marketing efforts. In short, it’s not about the beaches. No one really disagreed with me; but there were additions, twists and quibbles in the energetic responses.
Someone pointed out that the length of India’s coastline has been significantly revised upwards, thanks to a new methodology that also takes into account estuaries, inlets, bays and other geomorphological features. Thanks to that, the home ministry recalculated the coastline at 11,098 km last year from 7,516 km in 1970. The home minister’s home state Gujarat contributed the most to this growth, almost doubling from 1,214 km to 2,340 km. One eagle-eyed soul pointed out that the state has over a fifth of India’s coastline, but no beach tourism to speak of.
That brings us back to Goa.
Most agree that what Goa offers is much more than beaches. Some point to tasty seafood at affordable prices; others say that the absence of regular moral policing is a perk. Bars and beaches are often the average Indian’s idea of good life apart from great food. Goa ticks those boxes rather well.
Goa is also a retirement or second-home paradise, thanks not only to its proximity to the financial capital of Mumbai and matching real estate developers, but also due to Delhi’s cold winters and increasingly intolerable pollution. Easy access to flights and fantasy road trips complete the demand surge. Remember Dil Chahta Hai? It’s quite possible that such road movies fan youthful travel fantasies more than advertisements.
There are those who crib how Goa is now full of north Indians (read: Delhiwallas). I will believe in Goa’s true Delhi-fication the day I hear of a road rage incident near a sunny beach in which a back-seat limousine passenger tells a hatchback driver: “You don’t know who I am.” But rest assured, I have enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that more Delhiites are swapping the rocky Aravallis for Goa, which involves less lifestyle loss as age catches up.
One friend with whom I was planning to visit a mutual friend in Delhi informed me she was in Goa till February. Another, a writer, wistfully said she could not attempt a book on ‘Goa remixed’ because its fast changes defy contemplation. She noted that what used to set apart Goa was its laid-back spirit—called susegad in Goa, from the Portuguese sossegado meaning quiet—apart from tolerance, community and culture. That’s certainly slipping. Goa police has booked Sahitya Akademi winner Datta Damodar Naik, a 70-year-old atheist, on complaints that he hurt religious sentiments after he described temple priests as “looters” in an interview.
You get the picture: Goa is kind of going-going-gone in a strange interplay of conservatives, adventure tourists, rich travellers, winter-home seekers and retirees.
A list of festivals complete new Goa’s chaotically action-packed existence. My week included reading up on the Serendipity Arts Festival’s new frontiers. The Sunburn Festival for music, the Goa Arts and Literature Festival, the Sand Arts Festival and the International Film Festival of India have together made Goa a place for appointment tourism. Beaches have become an oh-by-the-way stuff in this overload of extravaganzas. The old churches and temples? Well, they no longer ring a bell for tourists, methinks.
An economist friend helpfully pointed out that Goa’s per capita income is double the national average. Tourism creates loads of jobs, another piped up. That might partly explain the decline of susegad and the rise of jugaad. But those weaned in South Delhi and South Mumbai’s aggression and the tech hubs’ multinational rat race are not complaining yet. You cannot easily reverse-swing the gains of growth.
Time was when Goa was a backpacking westerner’s idea of a poor man’s Thailand, not to speak of the hush-hush culture of intoxicants that went with the hippie era. They have given way to rave parties that occasionally spring up as voyeuristic news items. Then there are the perfectly legal casinos in floating spots. You may not bet in those casinos, but you can bet it’s one of the reasons for Goa’s multifarious attraction.
If your attractions are closer to sin than saintliness, you don’t need advertising to promote you. Low-cost word-of-mouth publicity can get you there faster. That seems to have already happened, triggering groans about a paradise lost.
(Views are personal)
Madhavan Narayanan | Senior journalist
(On X @madversity)