Reconstructing Goa through travel narratives: A study of select writings from Manohar Shetty's Goa Travels

Abstract

Today, travel writing encompasses a wide range of writings diversified by intent, content and style of narration. Whether it is a self-conscious travel memoir which seeks to amalgamate the particular with the universal or a travel blog written with a backpacker's enthusiastic immediacy, every narrative of travel literature is a palimpsest which contains perceptions about geography, demography, landscape and mindscape, all of which are coloured by the writer-traveller's vision. Goa - the land of many metaphors - has often found a place in the written word. Undoubtedly a favourite of wanderlust dreams since time immemorial, Goa has barely experienced the dearth of curious travellers and explorers. Yet, this essay argues, the contemporary image of Goa as vivid in glossy tourist brochures invariably plays to the galleries - its sun, sand and susegaado - neatly fitting into a fourth 's' that has come to define Goa's touristic identity - stereotype. This 'all-encompassing' popular paradigm, however, fails to do justice to the inherent variegation and verve which is a part of Goa's larger narrative - its diverse cultures, dialects, festivities, peoples and a systematic syncretism which is unique to a land that has endured dynamic dialectics. Working through the baseline of select writings from Goa Travels: Being the accounts of travellers from the 16th century to the 21st century, this essay wishes to study and analyse the reconstruction(s) of Goa through the travellers' lens in view of Goa's increasing tourist influx and visibility on the global map.