We had been at Agonda beach in Goa for what seemed like weeks. I was meditating during the day and drinking 16oz Kingfishers at night. Yasha was reading German novel after German novel and laying on the beach when the heat wasn’t just too much. It was a good life. Yet there was something missing. We needed something more from Goa than a sunburn.
I had heard about the capital city of Goa, Panjim, and I could swear that I had been there once before. But besides for that Panjim was nothing more to me than a name and a place out of the sun. Yasha claimed that there was more to it than that. There was a term called susegad , a nebulous Panjim concept relating to a relaxed way of life that somehow involved drinking a potent coconut toddy. Obviously this warranted further research! I also wanted to see Velha Goa, Old Goa, the ruins of the former Portuguese capital which lay only a short journey upriver from Panjim. What wasn’t to love about this? So we took a slow bus from Agonda through the jungle to Margao and then a fast bus which soared over the numerous estuaries of the Zuari River before arriving at the busy Panjim bus terminal. We were there!
By the time Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque came ashore on the banks of the Mondovi River in 1510 Goa had already been a thriving seaport for over a thousand years. Yet under the subsequent flowering of Portuguese culture and power Velha Goa came to be known as Goa Dourada, Golden Goa, with a population of 300,000. Unfortunately over time Goa was afflicted by episodic cholera epidemics; the decline of the spice trade and the continued ravages of malaria led to the Viceroy of Goa moving the capital to Nova Goa. Today Nova Goa is called Panjim. What’s refreshing about Panjim and Goa in general is the difference between the patriarchal and conservative Hindu majority of India and the more liberal and Catholic Goan state. There are even casinos!
We arrived in Panjim shortly before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception- a public holiday in Portugal and one in Goa too! Outside the Immaculate Conception Cathedral (and especially outside the Basilica do Bom Jesus in Velha Goa) wax body parts were on sale. I saw miniature arms, legs, feet, even a tiny house or two for sale. Typically a worshipper would offer these for bodily health before a shrine. Yasha bought a pair of eyes but they melted in the heat.
As the persecution of New Christians by the Inquisition increased in the late 16th century more and more Goans fled outside the territory. Today they have returned and so has Hinduism. The Murati Temple, dedicated to the monkey god Hunuman, lies on a ridge above the Fontainhas district of Panjim. We climbed up past the temple and the Archbishop of Goa’s palace.
We strolled along Altino hill, sheltered from the sun by magnificent shade trees. Before an open inviting gate we walked into what we discovered was the Sunaparanta, the Goan Centre for the Arts.
Below Altino Hill lies a sea of brightly painted houses and Azulejos tiles that stretches all the way to the river. Originally a coconut plantation, the Fortainhas Latin Quarter was developed by the wealthy Antonio Joao de Sequeira for the rich and elite in the recently inaugurated Nova Goa. As such, it looks like it’s straight out of the Iberian Peninsula!
It’s a tremendously fun town with friendly English-speaking locals. Every where one looks fascinating odd details jump out. In the photograph below, for example, the shutters to the Indio-Portuguese mansion are made from translucent mother of pearl!
Our days became the same. We would rise early to beat the heat and breakfast on some cheap Patal Baji with divine pillowy Goan bread, the Pao.
For lunch, well, there wouldn’t be any lunch! All the restaurants were closed! Remember susagad? This wasn’t siesta time, this was something else… something more amorphous. So in general we wandered around looking for some place to eat and getting increasingly frustrated. But in our wandering we noticed the bars weren’t closed during the mid-day hours; they opened at lunch and stayed open far into the night.
We found that the easiest solution was to simply drink our lunch!
Joseph Bar looked like a dive bar and that’s exactly what it was. The walls were painted mud gray and scrawled with graffiti and carved with scratches. We wedged ourselves behind a tiny table and quickly ordered a Peoples Beer with a Feni (the Goan hard liquor made from fermented coconut). I was still feeling nervous until a local businessman came in with his girlfriend and spilled his beer all over his own lap. But it was no big deal. “Ah, so this was susagad,” I thought. Susagad wasn’t just siesta time, it was more like a relaxed way of life where the minor inconveniences of life, like working during the hottest time of the day or spilling beer on your pants, can be safely ignored. So to test our theory we needed a larger sample size: the Miskil Bar!
One morning we rose early and walked to the Panjim bus terminal. It was time to shake off our lethargy and go to see Velha Goa. The bus was standing room only, so we sat up next to the driver as he slowly drove along the muddy banks of the Monrovia River.
Much to our surprise we were greeted by a festival-like atmosphere when we reached Velha Goa. And it was a festival; the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was still winding down. Workmen we dismantling a giant tent in front of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, so we decided to walk over to Se Cathedral.
Because Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque subdued the Muslim army and captured Velha Goa on St. Catherine’s feast day the cathedral is dedicated to her: the Cathedral of St. Catherine (Se in Portuguese merely indicated the cathedral to the ecclesiastical seat). The Corinthian interior is stunning.
A short walk away is the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Like Se Cathedral, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi is built in the Tuscan style, but without the massive bell tower the facade of the Church of St Francis of Assisi is uncommonly delicate. Built of lime-washed laterite, this west-facing church no longer holds regular services.
The interior is a fantastic gingerbread of baroque ornamentation. Above the tabernacle in the nave is a statue of St. Francis, while directly before that on the walls are wonderful paintings depicting the life of the saint.
We walked back around Se Cathedral, through the oldest section of Velha Goa. There was an arch immortalizing the “Argonaut”, Vasco de Gama, and a finely carved stone doorway- the last remains of the deposed Ismail Adil Shah’s palace. Finally we came to St. Cajetan Church, said to have been modeled after St. Peters in Rome
St Cajetan was by and large empty, the interior stripped and a bored caretaker snoozing on a crate. She was there to ensure I didn’t take any photographs! At this point I couldn’t go on; I was dripping with sweat and totally dehydrated. Thank God the Greenyard Restaurant and Bar was nearby! Several glasses of Kokum Soda cooled us and sent us on our way. After wading through heaps of rubbish left behind from the festival we stopped to watch the ferris wheel being disassembled.
Then we returned to the Basilica of Bom Jesus. Sadly, it was just as swamped with pilgrims and construction work as before.
The unfinished baroque exterior of the Basilica of Bom Jesus is the iconic structure in Velha Goa and is perhaps the best example of Portuguese colonial architecture in all of India. But like many things in India the story gets confused, truth and fiction become blurred. The cross seen to the rear of the basilica in the photograph above was meant to be placed at the peak of the structure, yet for some reason it still remains steadfastly on the ground. And then there’s the story about the body…
We got in line with all the other pilgrims and began shuffling through the church. A magnificent golden statue of St. Francis Xavier seems to hover over the altar in flight. Again, unfortunately, all photographs were forbidden. Then we arrived at the crypt of the saint and the pushing and shoving became tremendous! Everyone was taking photos with their cellphones- that couldn’t be stopped, so I joined in too!
One of the requirements for sainthood (among many) is an incorruptible body. That is what the mummy of St. Francis Xavier possesses: he was brought back from China where he died in 1551 – a two year journey – and his body looked as fresh as the day he died.
The body of St. Francis Xavier is removed from his tomb every ten years and displayed to the faithful. The crush of people on that day must be ferocious!
There is another story, however, of a 15th century Sinhalese buddhist monk, Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula Thera. He was a noted polyglot author, astrologer and Ayurvedic physician of his day. Shortly before his death he imbibed an Ayurvedic drug “Siddaloka Rasaya” which supposedly prevents his body’s decomposition until 4230 AD!!
What is true is that the Portuguese fought the Sinhalese for the possession of Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula Thera’s incorruptible body in the swamps of Southern Sri Lanka around 1505 before carrying it away. The real body – according to some – in the tomb of St. Francis Xavier is actually that of a buddhist monk!
It makes the head spin to contemplate it all!
Our thoughts were full of impermanence and the fog of history as we walked towards the St. Augustine tower. Once considered one of the three great Augustinian churches of the Iberian world, the Church of St. Augustine was abandoned when the Augustinians were expelled from Portugal in 1835. It rapidly deteriorated and then collapsed. Everything was subsequently lost.
We returned to Panjim in the early evening. This was to be our last night in Goa. We walked around looking for a community festival we had been told about the day before. Then we encountered lights, and we followed them to their source. This was a true community festival, a peoples festival. There were elders being escorted by their grown children, and younger children running throughout it all. I grabbed a Susegado Kokum Gose beer and we wandered towards the music. A children’s choir were singing Catholic Christmas carols. A shiver went up my back. Like Luang Prabang in Laos, Goa has taken the best of both worlds, of India and Portugal, and turned it into a pleasing and harmonious whole. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Many thanks to Wikipedia for the use of their unrestricted images