From the heart

It&rsquos that time of the year when a gaggle of holidaymakers who travelled to Goa over Christmas are likely still reeling from the after-effects of imbibing copious quantities of feni, among other sinful indulgences, on the sandy beaches of arguably India&rsquos most swinging state. These are, in the main, the winter birds who flock thither for the seasonal sun, surf and, well, sex on the beach &mdash to go by the stereotypical portrayal of the hip (and hippie-happy) place in the popular narrative.

Such a characterisation may well be halfways authentic, but Goans bristle, with the vigour of a vindaloo, at such a monochromatic depiction of their home. There have, of course, been other narratives that delineate Goa&rsquos myriad dimensions &mdash Teotonio R. De Souza&rsquos Goa To Me &mdash springs to mind. But for the most part, in going for the metanarrative and layering it with gravitas and dwelling overmuch on historical complexity, they miss out on the sights and smells (and the flesh-and-blood anecdotal accounts) that enrich the more earthy portraiture.

Katharina Kakar, writer and artist who (with her psychoanalyst husband Sudhir Kakar) moved to Goa in 2002, fills that vacuum with this insightful &mdash and delightful &mdash chronicle of Goan society and culture, drawing on petites histories, or a bottom-up, anecdotal narration that also takes in the larger societal and historical trend.

As a Westerner, Katharina brings an outside-in perspective &mdash and bears the badge of bhaile (outsider) with manifest pride. That perspective lets her clinically survey Goa&rsquos historical, social and cultural profile from a dispassionate distance. &ldquoThis outsider tag,&rdquo she writes, &ldquocan be quite liberating&hellip. Since bhailes like me are to a certain degree already ostracized, no one bothers too much whether or not you follow social norms&hellip&rdquo Free from identity traps that may otherwise have tied her down, she wades into the dark side of the Portuguese Inquisition, and the shameful role of the Church in helping enforce the harsh laws of the colonial administration that targeted and inflicted terror on Goan Hindus in the 16th century.

But Katharina also skillfully entrenches herself as an insider with &ldquoheartfelt love&rdquo for Goa and the people &mdash right down to the oddball characters with their delightful idiosyncracies. Such as Shiva, the resourceful tour organiser and cunning linguist (who knows all the postal codes of England, Scotland and Ireland and can sing Marlene Dietrich songs), and Eight-Finger Eddie, the original hippie from the 1960s. 

With a sense of ownership of her State that belies her outsider tag, Katharina also sniffs out sacred groves and stakes out on illegal miners. She even gets the young  waiters at the seaside shacks to open up and confide in her about their virginal sex-on-the-beach experiences with Western women &mdash and effectively shows up that promiscuous side of Goa Dourada (the Golden Goa) as a reality that cannot be denied. 

It is at this intersection of the personal and the sociological (and the political) that Katharina&rsquos narrative acquires a distinctive richness of tone. Hers is a deeply empathetic narrative of Goa, its people, and their history and traditions, which simultaneously educates, enriches and entertains.