Goa’s Sacred Art Kaavi:Heta Pandit

Lina Vincent Sunish

Goa (N 15 13’ E 73 37’) would probably topple over if you tried to fit it on a pinhead on the map of western India. Best known for its beautiful beaches where the crunchy white sand actually squeaks under your bare feet, rich landscape that typically includes vast tracts of paddy fields outlined with coconut palm trees and a predominantly sweet-and-sour cuisine that bears the heavy saucy influence of its Arab, Portuguese and British visitors, Goa is an epitome of how tourism is a misnomer for crass commercialization, bad urban planning and skewed image branding. Goa was under Portuguese rule for 451 years and has imbibed the influence of its colonizers in its food, dress, language, architecture and civil administration not to mention the way Goa’s inheritance law courts function. Although Goa was liberated from Portuguese Rule by the Indian Army in 1961, Goa’s society is still perceived as “being Portuguese” by visitors to Goa.