The Hindu Business Line : Goa, here I come

For over three decades now, millions of visitors have found good reason to visit this quaint little spot mid-way down the west coast. And, as more discerning visitors find out, Goa offers much more than what the stereotyped official tourism brochure, or luxury hotel promo promises.

To start off on the right foot first, however, don't just look at the stereotyped official brochures, or luxury hotel adverts, that promote the place. There's virtually `another' Goa out there, a Goa that lives off the beaten track, in its scenic villages, on the pages of the tiny tourism publications that have a better understanding on the pulse of what's happening. Even in firangi tourist guidebooks like the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, that are not influenced by the big-advertiser's mega-bucks and do an impressive job in finding out what's happening where.

For the better part of five centuries, visitors from West and East have chosen Goa as a destination. That is, if one includes traders from across the globe that found this a fascinating emporium of goods from far and wide, colonial explorers keen to control international sea-routes, and missionaries wanting a base for their hankered-after harvest of souls.

In the 21st century, this `almost-foreign-destination at desi-prices' is offering a new set of reasons to venture here. These are just some of those reasons:

Over the years, Goa has built up a vast tourist-based infrastructure. But getting visitors round the year, every year, can be difficult. Now, local hoteliers are increasingly finding that conferences make good business. This is helping them tide over trying times. Goa offers good deals for the conference organiser. The infrastructure is in place. For eleven months of the year (December's an exception), hotel rooms are easy to come by. Above all, conference organisers find that the name Goa spells magic for participants. In Anjuna, a one-time simple beach-village that was turned into the hippy-capital of India in the 1960s and 1970s, the variety of food available is simply amazing. One 200-metre stretch along the main road to the beach depicts this. There are as many as five different types of cuisines available in this small belt., including Afghani, Hebrew, Italian, German and the ubiquitous Chinese.Closeby, a Swedish lady runs another restaurant. Anjuna is not the exception; Goa's Euro charter boom, which started in the mid-eighties and peaked in the nineties, has brought in a wide range of cuisines from all over.

Elsewhere too, speciality restaurants are building up in various pockets of Goa. You can dig Mexican, European, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Mediterranean, Italian, Greek, Tibetan, and a range of other cuisines. As if this variety is not enough, there are pubs that offer British food, and special seafood outlets. These often are tiny hole-in-the-wall kind of places with down-to-earth prices...if you know where to find them.

Earlier vegetarian food was in limited supply in Goa. Not any more, Udupi food from nearby coastal Karnataka is most prevalent. This meeting place between North and South India also has a dash of Gujarati and Punjabi outlets.

Goans have earned a name for themselves for the food and music. Now, they're cashing in on this in their home-state. Visitors to Goa are often amazed by the musical talent available. Western influence comes from the long, 451-year colonial rule. Not just that, even churches in Goa in the past taught the 4Rs in their parochial schools -- reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and the rebbec (the local term for the violin).

This meant many Goans were among the pioneers for Western music in India and beyond. Today, accomplished musicians returning from the Goan dispora scattered across the globe are making use of their talent in many ways. Some play in starred hotels, though the complaint is that the tourism industry hasn't treated musicians well.

Goa is not just a bastion of Western music. Even in the world of Indian music, Goa has a long tradition. Musicians like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Kishori Amonkar and others trace their roots to Goa

Roughly put, Goa's long (and not always pleasant) experience with colonialism, has taught them how to deal with both the West and East. This ability to `get on with the world', as it were, makes Goans come across as a rather hospitable people. It is also a fact, though the recent foreign tourist boom has brought in the lure for the fast buck, upsetting the applecart somewhat.

This nonetheless remains a place where almost anyone feels at ease. Some foreign tourism promoters have tried to sell it as a version of `Asia lite' — that is, the continent with all its charms minus its stresses. Some of the quarter million foreign tourists visiting Goa each year, mostly British, use Goa as an entry point where to get `acclimatised' before venturing into

other destinations in India.

Three decades of tourism has brought in a wide range of exotic products that appeal to the visitor. So, even if Goa's rather poor public transport system leads to its town closing by an early 8 pm, there's still a lot to write home about.

Goa's beach-village of Anjuna, for instance, got the country's first bungee-jumping facility (Rs 500 for that extra rush of adrenalin). It has museums for naval aviation, located outside the port town of Vasco da Gama. The state government has also gone ahead to make Goa the first State to allow off-shore casinosBecause of its quaint history, Goa offers the visitor a window to another world. Wine and liquor-making skills are strongly entrenched here. Brazilians wanted to get their Portuguese-language software localised via Goa. Portuguese-language skills, after a decline, are slowly being rebuilt here. Goa could offer business visitors a link to the Latin American markets, still largely unexplored in India.

Like Pondicherry, Goa too is seen as a piece of Europe at 35 degrees centigrade. (Don't let the temperature fool you, the high humidity levels in summer can really make one sweat.) This is only partly true today, as the side of what some researchers call `Goa Indica' (the Indian face of Goa) gets more strongly emphasised.

One website terms Goa the `beach capital of India'. From a business point of view, it would help if Goa could work to diversify away from this brand-image though.

In recent years, Goa has been able to re-invent itself as the capital of entertainment. It's helped by the place's take-it-easy lifestyle (that's a misleading stereotype, protest hard-to-the-core Goans). Tourists who complained Goa offered little to do now find a range of (sometimes boisterous) nightclubs, an Elvis Presley theme pub in Sangolda village, and a range of watersports (scuba-diving, dolphin and crocodile boat tours, fishing trips, island visits, birding tours).

There's a lot happening. If only you can find it.

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