Goa

"Hospitality is not just a word here -- it's a tradition."

"Goa, Sanskrit Gomantak, the land of gods, was mentioned in the Sahyadri Kand of the Skanda Purana. It described the reclamation of the land from the sea by Parashuram, the sixth incarnation of Vishnu. Shiva also took up temporary residence there after he left his Himalayan abode. Goa experienced tremendous loss of its sacred heritage in the medieval period."

"The azure seas of Goa yield a variety of fresh, tasty seafood and fish. With a pleasant climate and diverse flora and fauna, Goa is a haven of peace and a mix of laziness and nonchalance, a mixture of the past and the future, where beautiful palm-fringed beaches glitter on its shores. Floring plants and trees grow lush, verdant, and fast. Fat ripe fruits like mangoes, papayas, cajus and many others abound."

"The Goans were very Victorian. Their girls were expected to be respectable and straightfaced and anti-sensual.The result was that the honest men had to hunt out Damibian women who did not have the Goan problem (the dishonest ones could find bored housewives, tired of their arranged, loveless marriages to older, respectable men or the more daring ones whose defiant love marriages had dried up all too soon)."

"Simply stated, the first paradox asks why the majority of international tourists are so enthusiastic about Goa in spite of the fact that there are aspects of the tourism experience which, if found in Europe or other developed countries, would constitute serious grounds for complaint."

"With the arrival of the Portuguese in Goa, in the early 16th century, Konkani music was confronted with a new musical style, Western European in origin, employing harmony, where usually three or more sounds combine simultaneously to form a chord..."

"If you follow Goanet, it seems to be a Goan feature to have 10 Goans, 12 opinions, and 16 enemies."

"Goanism is a psycho-endemic-repulsion, brought on whenever two or more Goans, of known or unknown significance, converge on the same field of survival, revival, rivalry or connivery."

"There are a great many heathens in this kingdom of Goa, more than in the kingdom of the Deccan. Some of them are very honoured men with large fortunes ; and almost the whole kingdom lies in their hands, because they are natives and possess the land and they pay the taxes. Some of them are noblemen with many followers and lands of their own, and are persons of great repute, and wealthy, and they live on their estates, which are very gay and fresh. The heathens of the kingdom of Goa surpass those of Cambay. They have beautiful temples of their own in this kingdom ; they have priests or Brahmans of many kinds. There are some very honoured stocks among these Brahmans. Some of them will not eat anything which has contained blood or anything prepared by the hand of another. These Brahmans are greatly revered throughout the country, particularly among the heathen. Like those of Cambay, the poor ones serve to take merchandise and letters safely through the land, because the rich ones rank as great lords. They are clever, prudent, learned in their religion. A Brahman would not become a Mahommedan (even) if he were made a king."

"History in Goa was simple. In the long colonial emptiness the pre-Portuguese past had ceased to matter; it was something to be picked up from books; and then the 450 years of Portuguese rule was like a single idea that anyone could carry about with him. To leave Goa, to go south and west along the narrow, winding mountain road into the state of Karnataka, was to enter India and its complicated history again."