Understanding Goa

It has been a month now since we visited Goa. This post may be quite late. It has become difficult to think of what exactly to write of trips? Unlike what popularly is perceived of people to do in Goa, our study trip to Goa with a group of 40 architecture students was very different. The trip looked at documenting traditional as well as contemporary architecture of Goa - panning a good radius of the geography. 

Unlike relaxing at beaches, indulging in pleasure or spending laid back afternoons, the 10 days of the tour were spent in rigorous work - shuttling from one site to another in the eight sites found after some amount of handwork. Divided into groups of five to ten, students split themselves to document buildings designed or otherwise. We were fortunate to have gained access to some excellent contemporary works including those of Dean D’cruz and Ini Chatterjee, along with Charles Correa. Much of this work can not be published due to reasons of privacy.

In the first two days, Rupali and I, along with Rutu made some surveys of the place, in order to choose the final list of buildings that can be considered for documentation. Goa is not a place that can be easily travelled through public transport. It is expensive to shuttle distances in rickshaws, and buses are quite infrequent. Bikes are a good way to move around, however, if you aren’t aware of the skill, you may be left with only expensive options. Thus most people have their own private means of transport.

One thing that I constantly remained confused of throughout my travel is about differentiating between the Mandovi river and the Arabian Sea. I wasn’t able to figure when were we facing the river versus the sea. The relationship of land to the water is not lost most of the time, however, as one goes to the interiors, the landscape is taken over by fields and greens. 

The experience of time in Goa is quite different. People respond slow, and work only enough to keep themselves in pleasure. Restaurants open late for the evenings, and may be happy to shun you off if you have arrived early. Postponing scheduled things is not considered unprofessional! Such is the work life in Goa!

The only artist Goa knows of perhaps in Mario Miranda. You will find Miranda sketches everywhere - in shops, museums, forts, marketplaces, book stores and so on. This is not to say that Miranda does not pick the pulse of the place in his work. His cartoons capture the spirit of the place quite sharply. I wasn’t able to see any thing else artistic that could speak of the culture of Goa. 

One of my biggest drawbacks was my vegetarianism. I wasn’t able to indulge in sea food at all. As Pankaj (Joshi) said - Goans don’t know how to cook vegetarian food! I wondered if this was the reason I enjoyed Goa less then everyone else. In one of the conversations, I ended up admitting that I couldn’t see myself in Goa for long - where everyone else was planning to retire here! 

The Goa Library, from where the images have been shared in this post, was quite informative. It was very encouraging to see a modern state of the art library facility in Goa. We browsed through books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps in an excellent environment. While the building wasn’t impressive, it was quite functional and spacious. It offered good environment for quiet study and engaged research. Looking at the collection, I was reminded once again of the libraries at Yale, and the way in which such environments foster writing and reading. 

The book I took photograph of records the physical, environmental and urban aspects of Goa. The sheer simplicity of talking about what existed and what transformed in this place helped me orient to two thing - first Goa as a place; and secondly to the age old benevolent form of reportage. I think just putting down all facts as they are for others to interpret and avail for a further analysis is a noble task. It creates a landscape within which more discussions can be inscribed. I like this idea of putting information together. I present here some bits of this data, spoken about with much care and effort.

Remaining stories of Goa when time comes!