My
last essay hit a nerve
with a Scottish reader, who argued that after living in Goa for five years, he should
be considered a Goan. This is despite the fact that he doesn’t socialize with
Goans; he claimed that this is irrelevant. I responded that being viewed as a
Goan is not a question of time spent in Goa but of engagement with the place. Engagement
is a critical topic, as Goa is treated like a reward for those with
money, who have fuelled the demand for investment property or who have chosen
to abandon the rat race for a quiet life here. Add to this the numerous domestic
and international tourists, who occupy different spaces that tend not to
include Goans. As I have already argued (see above-cited essay), this is how hospitable
Goa is—you can pretend there are no Goans here.
A
travel blog called Inditales.com is an example
of both the lack of engagement with Goa and the erasure of Goans that I observe
whenever I’m here. The author of the blog, Anuradha Goyal, has written pieces
on the North Goan villages of Aldona and Assagao that read less
like the insights of a traveller and more like advertorials—that is, paid ads
masquerading as opinion pieces (sticking with the theme of selling off Goa, here is an example
from 2007). Goyal states on her blog that she has lived in Goa for more than
three years, and yet she writes about Goa as if she has just visited for the
first time, with no prior knowledge of it. The descriptions portray a
surface-level interaction, with no probing to learn about these villages or the
people who inhabit them. Even more striking are the photographs. The only
people in the few images that contain human figures are far in the distance,
faceless and nameless. And yet in this absence of signs of life are photographs
of well-preserved churches and homes. So, while their existence might be
overlooked, these villages evidently have inhabitants.
(House in Aldona; Source: realestateIndia.com)
This
reminds me of a day last fall, when I was taking a walk around downtown Hamilton.
As I made my way through the MacNab Street bus terminal, I passed by a large tour
group whose professionally dressed participants were sporting name tags and
holding clipboards. Not wanting to stare, I glanced briefly and made out the
word “Toronto.” Interesting, I
thought. I heard the tour guide inform them about the history of the buildings
towering over them. Later on, I ran into this same group again on James Street
North. Now more curious about what they were up to, I slowed my pace and detected
a turn in the tour guide’s script. Instead of highlighting the history of the
neighbourhood, the subject was the neighbourhood’s potential. It hit me: this was a group of developers looking to
acquire property in this already gentrified neighbourhood. The gentrification of my hometown
is a topic on which I’ve written before. This particular street was already
reinvented as an artists’ hub, and now it is undergoing a transformation into a
downtown-Torontoesque neighbourhood of restaurants and condominiums. The
advertorials selling Hamilton to investors have been churning out of Toronto’s
newspapers for years. A city that was once known for its affordable detached
homes and green spaces is being increasingly concretized to allow developers to
make money. As I eavesdropped on this tour guide’s sales pitch, I wondered if
these people noticed or cared that the space they were coveting is already
inhabited.
This
brings me back to Inditales. The images of the houses in the blog posts remind
me of real estate advertisements. Realtors in Canada advocate home staging to enhance the
likelihood of selling one’s house. The basic rules of home staging are that the
premises must be pristine and lacking in personal touches, to make it easier
for potential buyers to envision themselves filling that space. Thus, instead
of providing information to would-be vacationers, these posts on Inditales
exhibit the home staging of Goa. The blog is guilty of subtly conveying the
idea of Goa as a vacant plot through its envisioning of the state as a land of
quaint, almost empty villages.
(Like Inditales, selling an empty Assagao on a real estate website)
Of
course, the erasure of Goans from the Goan landscape is nothing new. I remarked
once in a comment on a Facebook post (Sept. 7, 2016) about the habit of
referring to houses of a particular style as Portuguese, as if they were
never—and are still not—inhabited by Goans. It had occurred to me that this
terminology reinforces the idea that when the Portuguese withdrew from Goa, it
was deserted. No wonder, then, that acquiring one of Goa’s old “Portuguese”
houses offers so much prestige. In fact, I was told once by a local that there
is a saying: “You’re not a proper Delhiite until you own a house in Assagao.”
(Home in Assagao marketed as a Portuguese house; Property Management Group – Goa)
In
tandem with the promotion of the construction and sale of second homes in Goa,
the tourism industry plays its part in catering to the desire to acquire a piece of Goa. Look at
the following ad.
The
third line, “At your very own Goa,” begs the following question: To whom does
Goa belong? Not only does the ad invite tourists to visit Goa; it suggests an
entitlement to claiming it for themselves. In Goa, where does tourism end and
colonization begin? Furthermore, the ad promotes Goa on the basis of its
Catholic identity, in stark contrast to the larger vision of India as a Hindu
nation.
Vishvesh
Kandolkar
recently wrote a poignant opinion piece in The
Goan (Feb. 9, 2017) on engagement with monuments. In it, Kandolkar argues
that while the local Goan Catholics continue to use these monuments, to the
average tourist, they appear to be relics from a
bygone era. This argument serves as a microcosm for the greater issue of
engagement with Goa. The colonial history of Goa is primarily acknowledged for
its sales appeal through promoting stays in “Portuguese houses” and visits to
old Catholic churches, with an emphasis on their Iberian character. However,
any further mention of the imprint of Portuguese colonialism is discouraged.
After all, as the Goa Tourism Development Corporation ad tells us, all of this
belongs to the Indian consumer. Although tourism and consumption go hand in
hand, this promotion of possessing the territory in question is something I haven’t
encountered anywhere else.
(Source: lonelyplanet.in, Photographer: Jeremiah Christanand Rao)
The
question of how we consume Goa is one that I have been pondering for a while
now. I use the pronoun “we” because I recognize that I am not exempt from this.
I am but a visitor to this beautiful land, and though my relationship with Goa is
a long one, and I have been writing on local issues for some time, it occurred
to me that I have been guilty occasionally of romanticizing Goa and of wishing
for what I remember from “the good ol’ days” to be preserved for my own
benefit. However, over years of personal and intellectual growth, I have come
to understand that there is no such thing as “the good ol’ days”; one person’s
comfort and pleasure always come at the expense of someone else’s. For that
reason, nostalgia is harmful. It can blind you to the problems that others face.
And willful blindness to others’ problems and to the capitalist system that
creates them is as bad as actively promoting the consumption of Goa for
short-term gain or pleasure. Those who recognize the erasure of their identity should
seek ways to forge solidarity and assert their presence by demanding that we—the
insiders and outsiders—all engage with Goa.
