Reflected in Water

There is more to Goa than sun and sand, the hippies and the fanny, and Portuguese influence and the stately churches. It’s all these and more. It is a tiny geographical land which has been constantly struggling to maintain its own identity, first with the forces of the Portuguese colonialists and then, after the liberation, with the Indian state, as Maharashtra first annexed the state to its borders and then tried to impose Marathi as the official language, as opposed to the local Konkani.

The book, incisively edited by Jerry Pinto, is a precious mixture of critical essays, book extracts, commentary, poetry and even a comic strip, ruminating the past, present and future of Goa, how it came into being as a result of the old marriage between Konkani and Portuguese, and how it fought hard to retain its own identity, first at the hands of the Portuguese, and then, the Indian state, and now, the onslaught of globalization.

Among other things, I did love the placement of two contradictory pieces together. First, an extract from William Dalrymple and second, Prabhakar S Angle’s defence of the misrepresentation of Goa.