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Goa Heritage

The tale of the Goan “shippie”

Ask anyone in Goa or South India for that matter what or who a Goan Shippie is and they will tell you –  someone who works full time on a ship, usually a Merchant Navy ship. 

But unlike in England where it was the lure of the sea and the big, bad world out there, Goan Shippie’s were forced to leave their homeland in search of jobs, due to lack of employment opportunities in Goa. With no single major industry in the territory and agriculture producing rice that was insufficient for even 4 months of the year, many Goans were forced to leave their homeland in search of a career at sea, especially if they wanted to feed their families. 

Thus Goans, mostly Christians, began to leave Goa for nearby Mumbai (then Bombay), Poona, Calcutta and other places in India, and for Africa, the Arabian Gulf, and former Persian Gulf areas, Burma and Malaya, then the British Empire.

With their easy going “susegaad” nature, natural intelligence and knowledge of English and Portuguese, Goan’s were a popular choice as seamen.

Both being Christians, the British employers were also partial to Goan seamen or shippies and hired the educated as clerks, and the uneducated as butlers, cooks, waiters in their homes, clubs and hotels. Goan shippies were also much in demand as chief stewards, barmen, cooks, and saloon and cabin crew of big and luxurious cabin liners.

But most importantly, Goan shippies were known for their hard work and positive attitude to work. Willing to work for many months at a stretch without a break, Goan shippies were known as being reliable, honest and hard-working.

These qualities are hard to come by in today’s Goan youth, one old-timer tells me. “Today, the youth in Goa is only interested in drinking, partying and having a good time. They don’t have the work ethics and respect for work that we had. Probably because of easy money coming from tourism and mining and sale of ancestral homes and land, they don’t have to work hard any more. In our time, it was different – work was worship” he wistfully recalls. 

Goa Heritage

Goa wants to enter World Heritage list with forest bats

Being included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List is one of the surest ways for destinations to get noticed by tourists and the media alike. 

It was only a few months back, in July 2012 that the Western Ghats (the mountainous region spreading along the Western Coast of India across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala) was added to the World Heritage Sites list by UNESCO. However, the Goan part of the Western Ghats was not included in the UNESCO’s list.

There was a huge outcry by Goa’s powerful mining lobby when the proposal was brought up and it seems that the powerful mining lobby managed to thwart the Government’s attempts to include Goa in this prestigious World Heritage List. 

That is why it came as quite a surprise to me to read that the Goan Government would like to enter the Goa region of the Western Ghats in the World Heritage Sites list. 

Making its representation, the Goan State Forest Department has claimed that the forests of Goa are the only home on earth for rare species of wild forest bat — The Giant Indian Mastiff.

This small creature looks rather small and weak, unlike its rather pompous sounding name!

The Goan State Forest Department has claimed in a draft letter yet to be submitted to UNESCO that the Great Indian Mastiff (also known in scientific circles as the ‘Wroughton’s free-tailed bat’ has been sighted in the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats region and steps have already been taken to declare the area a protected region. 

As per protocol, the draft letter must receive the approval of the Chief Minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar, before being sent to UNESCO. The letter also includes an appeal to declare Goa’s forests as a ‘tiger habitat. 

The increased presence of tigers in the Western Ghats region in recent years shows the potential of these forests to become a protected tiger habitat in the Western Ghats region. 

For Goa to be included in the World Heritage list, the natural heritage must be deemed to be of value to all humanity.

If the proposal is accepted by UNESCO, the forests of Western Ghat will find themselves in the middle of a great amount of attention, from both the media as well as tourists. Not only does a UNESCO Heritage tag ensure a greater number of tourists, it also enables the local State Government to better protect the natural habitat against development pressures. 

Goa has indeed benefited by such a UNESCO Heritage tag in the past, as its Churches and Convents of Goa are already included in the cultural and historical Heritage Sites list of UNESCO. Built during the 16th to the 18th centuries, these historial structures date from Goa’s Portuguese Colonial days and are credited with introducing the Manueline, Mannerist and Baroque styles of art to the Asian peninsula.

Most beach tourists make it a point to at least visit the UNESCO Heritage Site of the Churches and Convents of Goa, known simply as Old Goa, during their stay, usually as part of a half day Old Goa sightseeing tour by bus. 

But as tourists become more discerning, they spend more time visiting and imbibing the cultural heritage of Goa, with repeat visits to both the Churches and Convents of Old Goa as well as the Heritage Conservation Zone of Fontainhas in Panjim.

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View from my Balcao – Liberty Port

View from my Balcao …my Dad blogs from Goa

Visitors, and they will descend in hordes come October, to this island in the sun, make the rulers of this tiny state genuinely believe that commerce & vice go hand-in-hand. Maybe true of the rampant mining over the past decade and more. Not entirely true of tourism.

Goa is certainly not a twilight zone of drugs, booze & sleaze, as is currently being made out – Bombay & Delhi score higher, for sure. Its just a fun-place where richie-rich kids from Bombay & Delhi (and lesser cities) come to have a spot of merriment. Beer, nay any booze, is ridiculously cheaper than other cities, so why not indulge in an extra tipple when on holiday. And why traveel all the way to Pattaya when Goa is round the corner.

The social-service wing of the ruling government has grabbed headlines for their enthuisiastic attempts to curb night-life. This middle-class anxiety about hedonism could change the perception of Goa forever, making it a dull and boring beach-state as against the carefully nurtured halo of being a free-and-easy one. Their puritanism appears naive at best. Bombay & Delhi too have rocking night-life, so why single out Goa ?

Goa serves a singular purpose of allowing young (and old too !) folk, engaged in stressful lives of today’s money-changing world, to chill-out and get a taste of Goa’s famed laid-back (sosegaad) lifestyle.

Goa’s night-time avatar is unknown to many – hot-spots at Baga/Anjuna/Calangute or any of the casinos moored in the inland-waters, that start rocking by 9pm and shut shop around 6am, and why not. Partying is the sole purpose of holiday-makers to Goa. Goa is not just the gateway to India but also a rocking paradise for the foreign, and increasing now, the Indian tourist.

Lest their prudism turn Goa into the least sexy beach-town in Asia and allow a more strident Pattaya to turn the tables & turnstiles, it must beg the question as to what is good, bad or ugly.

Across the icy gulf of time from the swinging 60s to today, Goa has been India’s best-known secrets among all foreigners.

The ruling Government’s collective anxiety about keeping a clean image of Goa’s beaches must perforce go hand-in-hand with the image of a state that has had 11 CMs in the past 12 years, excluding the previous Congressman, and one that allows the mining-casino lobby as much freedom as the beach-bums of yore.

Putting a check on both is certainly advisable, given the burgeoning mining & casinos scams, & increasing number of rape cases, but lets not overload it to cause it to tipple the other way and take away the charm of Goa’s liberty to all its visitors. The present CM, who has a blue-blooded engineering degree to his name, will have to find the correct balance, a middle-path as the wise Buddha said of life.

Goa Events

The Monsoon in Goa

 

There is something quite majestic about the monsoon in Goa as is batters down in fury on the dry earth.

Im sitting in my upstairs Suite at my Mitaroy Goa Hotel and as I type this, I can hear the rain thundering down on the tiled roof above me. Whenever I stay at my Mitaroy Goa Hotel in the monsoons, I make it a point to stay in the upstairs Suite so that I can hear the rain as it hits the tiles.

There is something in the Indian Monsoon that brings out the writer in one and the Monsoon in Goa has the same effect. Images of hot samosas (homemade by one of the ladies in Fontainhas) and adrak wali Masala chai automatically pop into my mind. It was 7th standard Hindi class, if I remember correctly, where we had this one story about a man who came back home after work and had the hot samosas and masala chai that his wife had prepared for him. And the image has stuck in my mind.

During the day, I love to sit on the my Suite balcony and watch the rain as it cascades incessantly from the rooftops. The coconut trees sway in the background, bowed down by the constant rain that falls on it. Sitting on my Suite balcony and watching the rain pour down, I am both enamoured and awed by the force and fury of the monsoon. I also watch as the small rivulets turn into gushing little streams and how the students from the nearby school walk in these streams on their way back home. Like the cliche, it seems to be the girls who carefully and daintily side step the streams while the boys make it a point to step right into the big puddles!

The advent of the Monsoon in Goa also signifies the end of the tourist season in Goa. On the beach mile in North Goa (read Baga, Calangute, Candolim etc), the shacks are securely shut and covered, to be opened after the monsoon has passed. Surprisingly, there are still tourists in Fontainhas and for some reason known to them alone, they all seem to be French. Although originally the Portuguese Quarter of Panjim, it is now French that can be heard in the streets as the French tourists walk around with their cameras and their umbrellas.

The Panjim riverfront is a popular Monsoon hangout for local and tourist couples alike as they hold hands and walk along the Mandovi river. Unmindful of the pouring rain, it seems that these couples only have eyes for each other.

Another popular Monsoon sightseeing spot is the Dona Paula jetty, a few kilometres drive from Panjim. If you climb to the top of the small outcrop, near the statue of Dona Paula and her lover, you can marvel at the force of the waves as they thrash and pound at the Dona Paula jetty, sending their spray  high into the air.

But the Monsoon is best enjoyed outside the city of Panjim. Driving through the verdant green fields and small villages outside Panjim it seems as if the whole of Goa has been washed clean by an unseen hand!

Mihir Nayak

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View from my Balcao: Goa in the rains !

My dad blogs from his Balcao in Goa…

 

Gimme shelter is the cover of one of the Rolling Stones popular albums.

And as the cloud cover in the sky bursts forth in a torrent of whiplash South West monsoons in the tiny state of Goa, nature’s power to upstage man’s arrogance is manifested in the sheets of rain that come down unforgivingly on your red-tiled-roof, beginning June and going on unabated till mid-September. you will ask for just that – shelter from the storm !.

Goa-in-the-rains is downtime for tourism and a celebration of calm & tranquility, a throw-back to the good times when tourism was not on fast-forward, but that was long ago & far away in time.

May-days are eagerly count-downed. Thankfully, last year, Mr Monsoon came a-calling on the dot on June 1st, putting an end to the agonising wait of sweltering heat that gets menancing by the day with a precious let-up in the evenings as the cool sea-breezes allow some respite.

As you meander along the relatively emptier highways, streets & bye-roads you can rediscover the serenity of the Goan countryside with its graceful cloak of green saplings, green-washed foliage and rain-washed countryscapes. White-washed Churches appear whiter, red-tiled-roofs seem just that redder, even the black asphalt of the road shines bright. Fishing is on enforced downtime (seafood is hard-to-get) as the storm-clouds gather on-the-run as if waiting to empty themselves into the churning grey expanse of ocean afar. Watch, ( from afar – the cosy confines of a stray-shack thats still doing the rounds ) in awe the breakers crashing to the shores, as nature, intruding its erstwhile frolicsome avtaar, comes down heavily, literally & figuratively, on man-made support-systems that suddenly seem so frail and vulnerable, against its mighty onslaught.Take a sunset strolle down the Panjim Causeway, with it array of raintrees along the boulevard – pretty sight.

Goa becomes its old self – quieter, less infested with loud tourists, table-space is easily available at the local shack or downtown restaurant, no road-rage and lots of spac to manouver your two-wheeler as you merrily ride the storm in your 2-piece rain-gear, or just stay indoors, pour a fiery feni ( fried breadfruit or ganbi-roasted shrimps) and watch the rain descend for hours at a stretch.

Enjoy Goa in the rains !