------------------------------------------------------------------------ * G * O * A * N * E * T **** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GARCA BRANCA VACATION ACCOMMODATION LOUTULIM, SOUTH GOA. For R&R; modern/clean amenities; serene, healthy and wholesome location
Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goa slow Some hasty impressions of India which may well be ignored. By Farah Zia farah.mahmood at gmail.com I have always held against projecting a sight-seeing short break as a travel piece on these pages. We really mix up things -- making no distinction between travel, break, holiday, sight-seeing and ideally want them all rolled into one. Actually, holiday as it was once understood is something that people caught in the capitalist rut can't afford anymore (we need to work to live, don't we?). All we can afford is a break, a couple of days at the most. So whenever we get this chance to visit a new place (even if it's to attend a conference or a workshop) we all carry in our bags a check list of landmarks of the new place we're visiting (having googled them already) and there we go, rushing like mad from one place to another. The return journey is that of a victor who has accomplished the deed or nearly so. A two-day moot of South Asian editors on Millennium Development Goals in Goa was going to be just work I thought, and still found the opportunity tempting. Editors from South Asia on MDGs in Goa -- the right mix for me in the same order of priority. I let things stay simple for me. Honestly I did not get the time to google the history of Goa or know who Rahul Bose was. Rahul Bose was supposed to host a dinner for us on day one of the conference. I told an anxious colleague that it could not be Bose the actor since India is huge country with at least a thousand Indians carrying one name. On the two hour flight from Karachi to Bombay, I got to know that two of my colleagues were not as hard pressed for time and knew enough about Goa and Rahul Bose (THE actor I was told) to compensate for my ignorance. They were confident for other reasons too. It must have been their umpteenth time in India while it was only my first. And although I had secretly comforted myself that Goa was somewhere outside India (the real India being Dilli and Kolkata for me), the excitement was immense. Before leaving, I thought I'd read enough in Pakistan about India being strangely similar and women riding Vespas to pay too much attention to. But the Chattrapthi Shivaji International airport at Mumbai was so damn familiar that I forgot to notice the similarity. The separate counter for Pakistanis and the carbon copied forms too were accepted on the basis of 'reciprocity' (we do the same to them, so what?) and the formalities were hurriedly undertaken to catch the bus that was supposed to take us to the domestic airport for Goa. Only the music played in the bus came as a reminder that we were in another country. And next was the captain of the plane (AirIndia) apologising profusely for the five minute delay and going on an on. We could make nothing of the Hindi version of his apology though. But here was a real surprise. Goa airport is located at Dabolim some 30 kilometres from capital Panjim. But Panjim was not where we were heading. It was a resort about 70 kilometres from the airport, we were told, on the opposite side of Panjim and bordering Karnatak. Any thoughts of sightseeing that may have raised their head in our minds were paid put right there. But the next three days in Goa offered a perfectly microcosmic view of the state itself as of India and a simultaneously insightful and sketchy look into what we now know as South Asia. Here are some impressions that stuck -- about Goa and India. Hasty impressions which may well be ignored. Having read so much about women riding Vespas, they still surprised me when I saw them for the first time in Margao, one of the three major cities of Goa. Margao falls between the airport and the hotel we were staying. A young woman carrying a younger brother and an old mother on the back of the scooter seemed such a simple way to empower women in cities, without much fuss. Goa indeed offers a liberating experience to its citizens, tourists, everyone. The taxi-drivers listen to good music. The young people are not inclined to move to big cities like Mumbai from the somnolent towns of the state that stayed as a Portugal colony for more than five hundred years. Why are the people at peace with themselves? "Because beer is cheaper than water!" one of the organisers reasoned. Perhaps rightly so. A huge number of churches dot the landscape as you pass through Margao where majority of the buildings are from colonial times. There is very little in terms of modern construction and hence few eyesores. As the conference drew to a close in the afternoon of the second day, we managed to see the sandy beaches, the heavenly hills and forests, we experienced the tropical climate and the almost horizontal rain as a consequence of an extended monsoon. We even saw quite a few back-packers or hippies, though the real tourist season begins in October and lasts till February. "More than seven hundred chartered planes come to Goa from Europe during the 'season', mostly from Russia, United Kingdom and Scandinavia." The taxi driver was well-informed; he had to be because Goa's economy rests on tourism. That's what the commercial activity is all about. Inside the conference was another world; the participants trying to reconcile with the reality of discussing poverty in a five star hotel. While one of the participants brought this up, the rest of them were ready to thrash out some serious issues regardless of where they were. Aruna Roy, the keynote speaker, set the tone of the conference by highlighting India's key issues, how a few of them have been resolved and how most others could not, without even once uttering the word 'MDGs'. The power of the people once channelised can do wonders. Aruna Roy, the moving force behind India's Right to Information Act which is now one year old, did not believe it till she saw it happen with her own eyes. Clad in a simple cotton sari, Aruna, 61, was an officer in Indian Administrative Service for seven years before she decided to quit. She now lives and works for the rural poor in a village in Rajasthan. Rahul Bose in his well-intentioned and well-articulated speech before the dinner underscored the need to look beyond the comforts of one's own lives and start helping those around in the smallest way possible. His association with social causes made his presence doubly special; his talk was earnest and inspiring. And then there was Avinash who left a comfortable job as a teacher to work in Gujarat at the time of riots and ended up with Oxfam. Not to forget ....the Goan journalist and the rapporteur of the conference who, we were told, refused to stay in the hotel, thinking it too expensive. So this was India for me. People doing things and effecting change. An impression so strong that the beauty of Goa fades in the background. And this is what compelled me to write a travel piece after a two day visit.