Goa – India’s Smallest State

We are now in the second most port intensive part of our journey now, behind only a series of consecutive days in the Mediterranean.  It was a quick overnight sail from Mangalore in far southern India to Mormugao in India’s smallest state of Goa.  For once our side (port side) had the nicer view as we overlooked the harbor with many small boats and some reasonably modern buildings to view rather than view the commercial, industrial side of the port.

Goa evolved separately from the rest of India and to this day¸ Goans, if asked where they are from, will say “Goa” instead of “India.”  Only if a person doesn’t know where Goa is located will they say that it is on the west coast of India.  We have seen the name “Mormugao” spelled in several different ways but this seems to be the spelling of choice here.  The port itself is named for the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama as it where da Gama embarked when he was returning to Portugual after his voyage to India.  Goa, unlike the rest of India, was largely settled by the Portuguese starting in the 16^th century.  For a time the Dutch tried to take over from the Portuguese but the Portuguese influence still remained.  As the British gained foothold in India, and since Goa was so small comparatively, Britain eventually asserted control over India including Goa.

In 1947 as a part of the end of the European colonial empires in Asia and Africa, India became independent but Goa remained under colonial rule.  It wasn’t until 1961 that Goa became free.  In 1970 the states to the north and to the south, which contained Bombay (Mumbai) and Mangalore respectively invited Goa to join them but Goa rejected the offers.  Instead it became the smallest of the Indian states.  They preferred to remain independent but logistics didn’t make this practical.  Goa’s population is under two million people today out of a population of over a billion people nationwide.  It has a land are of just over 3700 square kilometers.  To this day, Goans refer to Mumbai as “Bombay”.

For our excursion we chose Mangushi Temple and Panjim City.  We boarded our bus and found the seats to be smaller and window viewing wasn’t really good, but it was air conditioned!  We can’t imagine what it would have been like in this hot, humid climate without air conditioning.

 The Mangalore excursion had only shown us the city, but here we quickly got out into the countryside.  While there were still many shacks visible we also saw some more attractive home which clearly showed the Portuguese colonial architecture.  Many of these had been nice in their day but a bit run down now.  However there were still a number of nicely preserved homes.  Someone asked our guide, Caesar, about the preponderance of trash along the road and he told us the story of why that has happened.  He said that at one time, Goa was the cleanest of the states.  He indicated that he remembered that as a younger man, he observed someone throwing trash from a car window; he picked it up, caught up with the driver and handed it back to the driver to dispose of properly.  But now he said that much trash had been tossed out by visitors to the state and that they would be accused of racism if they spoke to anyone about discarding the trash.  Apparently there is a political correctness in Goa too – same story, different issues.  But as a result, Goans have become careless too and thus the trash is apparent almost everywhere.

Our first stop, about an hour from Mormugao was at the Mangushi Temple, another of the Hindu temples we are visiting.  Once again, we had to remove our shoes to enter the temple and this time I wore loafers rather than shoes that had to be tied!  That was much easier.  We could take pictures outside but it was strictly prohibited in the temple.  The Mangushi Temple in the village of Mangueshi was different from those we toured in Mangalore but that should come as no surprise because our Christian churches look different from each other with certain standard characteristics unique to our religions.  Someone asked what the significance of the elephant head on a man’s body was.  Our guide told us that in the Hindu faith, the Lord Shiva¸ the most holy man, had had a quarrel with another man.  It seems that Lord Shiva went out to the mountains alone and had stayed for years.  But before he left, his wife became pregnant and had a son. The son grew up not knowing his father nor did Lord Shiva know the son.  One day, Lord Shiva’s wife was bathing and instructed her son not to let anyone into the house at all.  It was at that precise time that Lord Shiva returned.  Since Lord Shiva and the son didn’t know each other, they quarreled over whether he should come into the house.  In the course of the confrontation, Lord Shiva beheaded the young man, not knowing it was his son.  His wife, when she found out what happened, was so distraught that she asked that the first living thing be beheaded and placed with her son.  It was an elephant that Lord Shiva saw first so he beheaded the elephant, placed it with the son, and so began the importance of the elephant to the Hindu faith.

We are aware that the cow is sacred and we saw many cows wandering the countryside.  Al told us that he had seen quite a few in Mangalore the day before but Barb and I were on the other side of the bus and for some reason, we saw none.  But in Goa it was different. We saw lots of cows, many alone but several in groups. In the Hindu tradition, the cow’s milk sustains infants and the bull was the chariot of Lord Shiva. Shoes aren’t worn in the temple as most shoes are made of leather.  So as not to make a mistake, even shoes not made of leather are prohibited.

When we left Mangueshi, we drove toward Panjim City by way of the town of Old Goa.  Old Goa is a well preserved village and the location of what once had been 30 churches, pretty much all in one area.  Six of the churches survive including a large Roman Catholic complex which we drove past.  Driving into Panjim City on the Mandovi River (Goa’s second longest river), we noticed that for the most part it was quite modern but still reflected the old Portuguese heritage.  We stopped to visit the local market which included the vendors’ booths along a very narrow street.  That led into the big market, made of concrete and with a roof.  Everywhere fruits and vegetables were being sold along with fish and other products.  Most of the women sat up on the tables and sold their products from that perch.  We encountered several beggars, one a woman carrying a baby, another a small girl who asked me to buy a plastic toy for her.  Initially I thought the girl was trying to convince me to buy it but then I realized she wanted me to buy it for her.  We were warned by our port lecturer, Barbara Haenni, that giving to beggars was our choice, but if we did, we should expect 20 more to come out of the woodwork to ask us to do the same for them as we did for the one we helped.  As a result, none of us that I observed gave anything to the beggars.

A 45 minute drive brought us back to our ship in time for an early departure from Goa at 3 PM. The reason had to do with the tides.  We needed to get into the open sea before the tide came out. 

Sri Lanka and India are not even hours off most of the world, but rather ½ hour.  For example, we are not 10 or 11 hours ahead of Chicago, but rather we are 10½ hours.

We are now half finished with our four day Indian exploration with our two days in Mumbai ahead.

CT