The uniqueness of Goa captured in pictures

A lot has been written about Goa and a lot of photos are out there. I thought I would share something different. Recently I went to Goa for the 7th time (our kul devat or family diety is in Goa) but did not visit the usual places that tourists visit. Except the beaches ofcourse.

I want to share a collage I made of the colourful buildings in Goa. A lot of buildings are built in the Portuguese style of architecture but I am not an expert and what I want to show are the colours of the buildings…the solid colours of blue and yellow and red which are unique to Goa buildings. Yellow is a predominant colour.

Here is another collage of the photographs taken while driving through Goa’s streets. Goa is beautiful, clean and peaceful.

These are some sculptures I saw in a shop by someone called Mario (not Miranda). They were over Rs 15000/- each! About 8 inches in height.

I thought I would use this opportunity to bust some myths of Goa and I will quote Rajdeep Sardesai here. He is a native of Goa. He makes two points in his write-up. One is that Goa is conservative. As conservative as the rest of India. Mumbai is a far more liberated city than Goa. Traditional values prevail in Goa. There is only a very small section of Goa (Anjuna Beach side for example) where you find people walking around in skimpy clothes and taking drugs (mostly tourists). Here it is in his own words:

There is the Goa of the beachcombers, of the hippies who discovered Baga in the early 70s, of the rave parties, of paedophilia, of decadent hedonism. But there is also the Goa of deep social conservatism, of folk religiosity in its village temples and churches, of simplicity of lifestyle within rural communities, of a premium on education and of immense pride in its plural, multi-cultural heritage. The Goa of a tiny strip of beach between Candolim and Anjuna is constantly in the media gaze and makes front page headlines.

Second point: Goa is not majority Christian which many people believe. Goa is majority Hindu and the statistics are as follows (out of a total population of just 1.3 million spread over an area of 3,702 km² ):

65.7 percent hindus
26.6 percent christians
6.8 percent muslim
Rest are Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and other religions/atheists
Total Literacy: 82 percent

Sure, the number of Christians are perhaps the highest in any state in India (barring some North-Eastern states) particularly if you compare the demographics with Mumbai. It may not be an apt comparison as Mumbai is a city while Goa is a state, but while Mumbai’s area (603 km²) may be small, its population is huge (13 million), larger than Goa’s. Mumbai has almost the same proportion of Hindus within its population. Here are the statistics:

68 percent Hindus
17 percent Muslims
4 percent Christians
4 percent Jains
The rest are Parsis, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews and other religions/atheists
Literacy: 86 percent (source: wiki)

My favourite restaurant in Goa is O Coqueiro and we always visit there for authentic Goan cuisine. Popular dishes here are stuffed crab and rolled papad stuffed with prawns. A trifle spicy but then authentic Goan food is spicy. The place is inexpensive as well and without any frills, although they do have an AC section. I don’t know why they make such a big deal of the fact that the criminal Charles Shobraj (French serial killer of Indian and Vietnamese origin) was arrested here though. They have actually put up a huge bigger than life-size statue of his On the verandah!

Now to some beach photographs. There is this one I took when we were walking along the beach trying to find a shack to eat dinner. Finally I managed to get some decent night photos!

Some famous beaches of Goa…this one is the Coco beach (this photo is taken from a cell phone).

This one below is Anjuna Beach and the biggest shack you see is where Scarlett was last seen alive (photo from a cell phone). Amit…see I did go there! Though not to investigate… just taking a round of the pretty beaches.

This is the place where her body was found…looks so safe doesn’t it!

This photograph has been taken of the beach at Taj Holiday Village (3 pics combined in 1):

This is a ship that ran aground on the shores of Goa. It’s been here for years…though they seem to be trying to salvage it.

As we were walking towards this grounded ship we came across this hair salon… I guess the saloon was closed as it was off-season! 🙂

And as Ruhi wanted a photo of me, here it is! Its taken by my husband as I was wetting my feet in the dark sea. I photo-shopped it, basically distorted it by using the pallete knife function.

(All photographs are by me and copyrighted, except for the map which is for a government of Goa site)

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