Indians Welcome In Goa !!

This was the heading of one of the articles in TOI. While going through the article I recalled my experiences in Goa. Anyone who has been to Palolime beach is mesmerized by the beauty of that place. The beach is beautiful, the water is clean and the sea is mostly calm. So it’s a perfect place if you are looking for beach holidays. There are mostly shacks, no big hotels and everything is so organized that you will always like to visit the place. The food is good and economical and the rent is also cheap. The places here are mostly occupied by the foreigners. We were told that they have clients coming to the same place for the past 15 years and they spend from one month to six months. Yes there were very few Indian tourists. We were the only ones at “ Big Fish” which has around 10-15 sacks and they used to bill us as “Indian Couple”.
Palolime has its own environment with a lot of foreign touch in it. Usually the day starts at around 9-10 with people taking a dip in the sea and enjoying the sun. The whole day is spent outside alternatively in water and sun. The beach is covered with sun beds and umbrellas and people scattered in bikinis and swimwear. As evening approaches you can see everyone dressed, the sand beach is covered with food tables with a candle at the center instead of sun beds. Each restaurant alternatively holds a music night where the singers are the usually the tourists. The place where we stayed was taken up in lease by a Nepali guy who has married a French woman. Yes, she was a regular tourist and they met here and got married. The person changed his name from “Narayan Bisht” to “Noha Bista” which was easier to pronounce by the tourists. No doubts that other restaurant staff too were inspired and awaiting their luck as they wait for the regular customers. If we talk about the discrimination -- yes it exists very much in Goa. The dollar power surely wins over rupees. Though the restaurant staff never makes us feel that way but still you can see things going around. The waiters are not in interested in communicating in Indian languages and they are more adapted to the foreign accent. So they will not get your hindi as well as your English. Everyone from the boatman, the shopkeepers, the waiters, to the the fruit sellers are well versed with foreign accent and things they need to say in that accent. Good morning, how are you? Do you have a girl friend? Take it for your friend? How beautiful? At times it was quite surprising to see someone in rags and talking such fluent accented English. The locals are ready to play with foreigners be it beach volleyball, just catch and throw or football but they don’t do it if you are an Indian. Once that happened with my husband too, when he offered to play with a local who was playing with the foreigner. That person refused, I still remember my husband was pissed and when I asked why, he told me “they play with foreigners only”. Though later on my husband made a place for himself in the football team. Another thing that I noticed that the women who used to sell seashells, jewellery and other knickknacks always avoided me. They never came up with their things to us whereas they were persuading the foreigners near me. Once I specifically called up one of the ladies asking for a seashell jewellery box and just for my vanity purchased a necklace. Neither were we approached for the massages. Yes definitely, Goa is a place where at times you feel that you are entering a foreign territory. Though there is discrimination but I will not entirely blame the local people. One of the reasons that they avoid Indians are the way they behave with tourists. Out of 10 in 9 cases the Indian men misbehave with the foreigner women. They make all efforts to touch females when they are in water. Many times we noticed foreigner ladies coming out of water as soon as they saw Indian men going there. Secondly even when coming to the beach they don’t carry the swimwear and enter in water with underwear and undershirts. You can see empty bottles carelessly thrown by Indian people. Moreover the foreigners are much more cordial with local restaurant people as compared to us.
I believe that with this campaign, the Goa government will make things easier for Indian tourists too. At the same time we also need to be more well behaved, considerate and should learn to live in harmony with the foreign tourists.