You wouldn’t think there is either a global recession or an off-season in Goa, crossing the Mandovi in a chartered mini-bus: The vehicle is just one in a snaking line of several used by hotels to ferry guests. Since I was last here almost a decade ago, the hotel scene has, of course, exploded. Charming and charmingly-named boutique hotels rub shoulders with the bigger properties, of which the most notable addition this summer has been a Taj business hotel in Panjim. We don’t know whether that is getting any of the conference crowd as yet but eager holiday-makers from north India are descending on the leisure venues.
On the Spicejet flight to Dabolim, an excited casino first-timer from Delhi has been warned of the obvious “dangers” of betting by his more worldly-wise neighbour. And excited children, sharing tubs of popcorn (because, of course, this is a no-frills flight) have been telling each other in awed voices across the aisle that they will be staying at the Zuri White Sands or such.
Most of the two-and three-star properties, favoured by the foreign crowd in Goa that hasn’t come in at all post the Mumbai attacks, are closed. And it is domestic travellers who are driving the market lured by “family” packages. We have chosen that old faithful, the Fort Aguada, where the price of Rs 21,000 for four days (inclusive of all meals and taxes) may be deemed a steal.
On the first evening, we can see a furious sea, swelled by the rains lashing out at the old walls, as we eat our buffet dinner that includes a fish “nihari”. With travellers from Delhi — uneasy in their beach shorts and skirts, but also those more at home in sequined sarees and synthetic salwar kameezes — having flooded the place, Goan food in Goa has been the first casualty.
The memory of the seafood eaten in beach shacks 10 years ago takes us to Calangute that evening. Alas, the monsoon and the Scarlett murder case have together meant that most shacks are now closed. The beach is filthy: plastic and pint bottles strewn around, scavenging packs of dogs, and strange-looking characters lounging around. In 10 years, the beach of my imagination has turned into a small-town circus.
The “Save Goa” people should really save its beaches. Even the one outside the Taj in north Goa, now a shrunk bar of sand really, is ill-maintained. But that is hardly the only thing that has changed. Calangute now has a Calangute mall; there are branches of the Oxford book store, the Republic of Noodles, Barista and Café Coffee Day outlets, and even a made-to-look ancient miniature copy of the Meenakshi temple being constructed. The quaint pastry shops, “Belo” wine stores, where you could have cheap drinks sitting out on plastic chairs, and the sporty, unafraid women on scooties have all gone missing.
At Calangute, a Sai bhajan plays at a restaurant outside the beach. And people have, well, covered up — all except some pot-bellied men rolling on the beach in striped underwear. Salwar kameezes, the most unflattering of Indian garments, have made an appearance, and there are girls in skinny, cheap jeans, unmindful of the discomfort of soaking wet-denims-full of sand. Shorts, forget bikinis, are conspicuous by their absence. And, no you wouldn’t want to be a young single woman here any more. Goa has been shackled, at last.
So, when we find Souza Lobo, the beach-side restaurant that’s been here since 1930, open, we say a silent prayer of thanks. We devour a plate of fleshy crabs, fried in butter and garlic that costs us Rs 150, and move on to the masala prawns, calamari and finally a true Goa prawn curry with fluffy white rice. Something of the old magic does endure.