Life is Goa

Honestly speaking there are few places (amongst the ones that I have visited) that count for ‘romancing’ in my lexicon. Goa cajoles you in her arms the moment you see her. The sun kissed beaches and the green forests with the flowing rivers & the creeks and the lush mountains make her the most enchanting seductress on this earth. If you aren’t enamored by this showcase of beauty then you mustn’t have been born at all.

I was undertaking this trip after a long time and I have fragile memories of my first visit as a 2 year old. In the midst of this prolonged period I heard accounts from people who had visited this land and how they enjoyed their stay there. I have found friends & relatives escaping the confusion and the noise of the metropolis to the quiet tranquil of Goa and I kept wondering about the magic all the time. The suspense ended when a trip was planned recently to attend the annual Shanta Durga and the Mangeshi festivals. My holiday was however not intruded and I got my fair share of the local sight seeing of Goa and beyond.

Day 1
I feel very depressed (somehow) when I am leaving Mumbai and I have no clue why. Perhaps it’s the feeling of sacrificing my luxuries for a brief period. The Konkan Kanya Express from CST left at 22:00 hrs. and reached the Karamveli station in Goa at around 10:00 hrs. A prepaid taxi took us to our destination which was the Shanta Durga temple complex in a scenic village called Kawle. According to hindu mythology the Goddess of Peace? or Shanta Durga mediated to stop a fight between Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva and separated the fighters. The original temple was built in a village called Keloshi but was badly damaged by the Portuguese in the year 1567 (Source – http://www.goacom.org/pictures/drga.html). A group of devotees crossed the difficult marshy terrain and bought the idol to this village and reinstated the honour of the presiding deity. The temple houses a residential area for the devotees called ‘Agrashala’ but there is a catch. Only those who belong to the Saraswat Brahmin caste are allowed to reside here. We were lucky to have found a room here because of our relatives.

Before we started our day we had to do what they called a ‘Dhoolbhet’ or thanksgiving to the goddess for making our journey to her threshold safe. By the time we finished our lunch in the temple canteen it was already afternoon and it was decided that we would see whatever little that we can of Goa. So we hired a private vehicle and went straight to Panjim which is a 45 minute drive from the village. The afternoons were really scorching at this time of the year and I thought that winters were supposed to be pleasant. Our first stop was the Bom Basilica of Bom Jesus which is now a World Heritage Site and was built in the year 1605. It houses the sacred relics of St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa who died while on a journey to China in 1552. (Source – http://www.goahub.com/goa/travel_guide/churches/bom_jesus.html) The relics continue to draw huge crowds to the church. We next drove to Dona Paula. A legend goes that it is named after the daughter of a viceroy who jumped off the cliff when she was refused permission to marry a local fisherman with whom she had fallen in love (Source – http://www.goacentral.com/Goanatural/dona%20paula.htm) . One gets a beautiful view of the Marmugao bay from the Dona Paula cliff. By the time we reached there, the sun was already setting and I had some wonderful pictures of it from the cliff above. With the breeze blowing, the sun setting in the cool waters of Goa and the birds preparing their journey back home, this scenic view and experience surely made my day. The Miramar beach with it’s golden sands was our next halt. This place is the where the River Mandovi meets the Arabian sea. This place is definitely ideal for a nice moonlight walk on the soft sands.

In the evening we packed some luggage to move over to our next destination which was the Mangesh temple at a nearby village called Priol. The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and similar to the Shanta Durga, the original temple did not belong here. The Portuguese vandalized and demolished the earlier structure at Kushashthali or what is now known as Cortalim and in 1560 the devotees bought the ‘linga’ to it’s present site at Priol. (Source – http://mahalaxmidev.com/mangesh.html) . Every year the annual Magh Pournima festival brings together the Saraswat Brahmin devotees from all over the state. This is a very important event for the temple where a decorated chariot procession is taken out in the night and early morning. The dinner was taken at the canteen itself which is free of cost. The food is deliciously excellent despite the absence of garlic or onions in the preparation.

Day 2
My experience at the ‘agrashala’ at the Mangeshi temple is nothing to write about. The chariots were being readied for the procession very early in the morning and all the devout followers had gathered to pull the same. Before that is done coconuts are smashed at the base of the chariot and I have no clue why that is done. Someone told me that it’s inauspicious if you don’t break it in the first attempt and I could see a lot of middle aged and old people struggling at it. I managed to break 3 of them in my first attempt and that was a big achievement for me.

The chariots are then pulled by the followers around the temple. To keep the chariot on its path, 2 men facing all odds get in front of the charging wooden mass and poke a bamboo staff under the wheels. At one stage I felt this lunacy will overturn the giant chariot but everything went off smoothly. The secretaries or the Khamavisdar are the head of the shanta durga and the mangeshi temples and they have a big role to play here. When the Shanta Durga festivities begin, it is the honour of the Mangeshi temple head to lead the breaking of the coconuts while the secretary of the Shanta Durga temple does the same for the Mangeshi festivities. This has been a long standing tradition.

At day break, we traveled back to Kawle and were planning to move over to another leg of sightseeing. We hired a vehicle to take us to the Gokarna and Murdeshwar temples. We also visited the temple of Baneshwar-Katyani at Aversa which is shaped like a boat. The entire Karwar coast on National Highway 17 (NH17) on which lies Gokarna is flawless with clean water and beaches and sea gulls all over the place. I caught a glimpse of a huge military installation just down below the cliff. After a few minutes it struck me that it was the Indian Navy base Project Seabird which will be now known as INS Kadamba. It was a marvelous feeling to view something as huge and important as this on a holiday trip. The NH17 passes right through the middle of the installation and chances are that the route might be diverted in the future to restrict civilian access.

Gokarna or Cow’s Ear is a holy place for the Hindus. Here lies the ling of the Lord Shiva in a shape of a cow’s ear. I did not have to find a pundit to do the Abhishek for me, they all come running toward you if you show your interest. You need a pundit to get you inside the crowded temple and touch the ling which is buried inside water in the main sanctum sanctorum. You have to remove your shirt and anything inside it before you can start the puja. It didn’t take long for the proceedings to get through and I was out within 15 minutes. I had no clue that Gokarna has an excellent beach until I came across some articles on the internet. That explains the presence of foreign tourists in large numbers there. (Source – http://www.journeymart.com/Dexplorer/AsiaIS/India/india_addon/seaside/gokarna.asp)

Murdeshwar on the other hand is a quite place rather a tourist spot more than a religious destination. It is well known for the world’s tallest Shiva idol situated on a small hillock. The idol is 123 feet tall and has taken 2 years to build it. By this time the sun had already started to shine on us and we decided to cool down in a restaurant adjacent to the site.

We took 12 hours to cover a distance of 477 kms. I was happy that we could achieve this in a short period. A similar group on a earlier day had taken an entire day to do the same.

Day 3
This was a day when we had absolutely nothing on our hands. We took off to see some of the religious places in the vicinity. The temples which we saw included Shri Ramnath temple, Shri Naguesh temple, Narsimha temple, Mhalsa Narayani temple, the Ganpati temple at Khandola, the Devki Krishna temple, etc. Amongst the odd ones were the Mayem Lake near Bicholim, about 35 kms from Panjim. There are boating facilities available here but I decided against fighting the sun. We also passed over the Cable Stayed Bridge (supposedly the only one of its kind in India) built on the river Mandovi.

My journey to Goa would have been incomplete without a visit to Fort Aguada. I had heard so much about it through the media and also a lot of Hindi films have been shot here. The Fort Aguada was built in 1612. The word Aguada means a watering place in Portuguese. There is an underground water chamber in the fort. There is a light house inside the temple which used to emit light once every 7 minutes. It was abandoned in 1976.

The good news of that day was that India had won a thrilling match in a run chase against Pakistan. Dhoni had bludgeoned the Pakis to death in a 102 run partnership with Yuvraj Singh.

Day 4
It was now time to say sayonara to Goa but not without a promise of returning back. Well, I have to. After Lakshadweep, Ladakh and Kerala, I have to add Goa in my list of the most wonderful places on earth. The Mandovi Express took us back to reality and civilization. Goodbye Goa…until I see you again :-)

» Visit the Official Goa Tourism Website
» List of Hindu Temples in Goa
» Goa Travel Information on Lonely Planet