It’s not so easy to find serenity in Goa anymore. The madding crowds of other States have slowly found their way to this tranquil haven, and unleashed chaos on beaches, roads, markets, waterfalls, forests and wherever else serenity once lived.
As this happens, Goa’s quiet has made a stealthy retreat. It now lives in some dark shadows of the tiny State. Its dwelling is now occupied by a cacophony of traffic noise, jangling and hammering at construction sites, loud and discordant voices of crowds and other unpleasant sounds that cut through its once-peaceful neighbourhoods.
How can serenity live in a place where you have bumper-to-bumper traffic, scooters and motorcycles snaking through a maze of traffic, heavy vehicles usurping the entire space on narrow roads, parking nightmares, pedestrians jostling their way through crowds, streets packed with pigeonhole-like shops, long waits at traffic signals, pot-holed roads and litter strewn on footpaths and walkways?
This isn’t the Goa, where serenity made her home. One of the reasons, the tropical State is losing its essence is its unchecked and visionless tourism. What’s being pursued at the moment is ‘patchwork’ tourism.
This isn’t the Goa, where serenity made her home. One of the reasons, the tropical State is losing its essence is its unchecked and visionless tourism. What’s being pursued at the moment is ‘patchwork’ tourism.
This kind of 'patchwork' policy does not adhere to any process and is not born from meditation or brainstorming. It just picks up a few tourism pieces and patches them together to create a motley pattern that may look appealing but fails in carving a long-term path for tourism.
Today, Goa has moved far away from the pure destination tourism of the late 20th century, when visitors travelled to the place to experience sun, sand, surf and serenity and its exotic culture. Tourists landing on Goan shores got served fish curry, chicken cafreal, pork vindaloo, a wide fare of seafood and all sorts of local delicacies, accompanied with Goan music and hospitality.
This, along with fishing and iron ore mining, had kept its economy churning. Being a tiny State, with a population of less than a million (as per the 2011 census, it was 1.4 million, and is reported to be around 1.5 million now), this type of tourism sat right with Goa.
Then, mining hit a legal hurdle and collapsed, and the government decided to bring in Casino tourism. Overnight, the profile of tourists coming to the state altered. This lot was drawn by the obscene fortunes they could make at the gambling dens. The State also struck gold with it. And so, any amount of resistance from locals would not make the government reverse its decision to chase this tourism.
The casino tourists, who poured in hordes, did not travel to soak up the feeling of Goa. They cared little for Goa’s intrinsic charm. For them, wide open spaces of Goa were commercial opportunities to be tapped at any cost.
The casino tourists, who poured in hordes, did not travel to soak up the feeling of Goa. They cared little for Goa’s intrinsic charm. For them, wide open spaces of Goa were commercial opportunities to be tapped at any cost.
They were found wanting in environmental sense, and topics like biodiversity, ecosystem, waste management and pollution-free did not resonate with them. For them, these terms were irritants to be flicked aside. The next blow, from Covid-19 pandemic, took the wind out of the sail for Goa’s tourism as the number of incoming foreign tourists drastically fell.
The two wars – Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine – that followed further dented its tourism. Gripped by panic, Goa began wooing domestic tourists, and soon there was a flood of tourists into the tiny State.
Buoyed by this tourist deluge, Goa is now going after experiential tourism, festival tourism, waterfall tourism, forest treks, marine tourism and all the other ‘isms’ of tour. And as this unfolds, the old (original) Goa is getting lost. Concrete structures and plastic culture are tearing through its fabric, leaving behind a big hole, through which serenity is slowly escaping to find a new abode.