Why bother with a subject like ‘living in Goa’? There exist countless blogs, travelogues and tourist reviews about Goa on the net. For example, two websites that I often frequent when I wish to make my travel plans - tripadvisor and Indiamike –have extremely active forums that contain almost all forms of knowledge that an average (and not so average) tourist would like to equip oneself with before planning a trip to Goa or any other place in India. One can find a wide variety of reviews and queries about the best beaches, hotels, resorts, transportation, restaurants etc. splattered all over the net for almost all tourist destinations all over the world. I feel, that generally on the relatively popular sites where the traffic is high and forum members are relatively numerous, the queries are asked with fervor and answered diligently. Selflessness and patience shown by the experienced forum members brings out a lot of positive vibes from me. Reviews, I feel are, generally, honestly done and induce more trust compared to their professional and polished counterparts founds in travel magazines.
In light of the above, ‘Living in Goa’ is clearly not intended to be an extended travelogue. The objective here is to do two things. First, to talk about the tasks that one must undertake in order to ‘live’ in one’s second home, especially in India. These are tasks that an average traveler does not have to undertake when he is a just a visitor. I am of course talking about blood curling tasks like water and electricity bill payments, getting an LPG connection etc but also about social networking and other forms of human interaction on an intermittent but repeated basis. Here I have a faint hope that by sharing my experiences I may be able to, perhaps, help others who intend to go down this path. As I already stated in my first post, I wish to share and learn from others how does one accomplish this task without going insane.
Now, trying to juggle two jobs, two girlfriends/boyfriends or many other two or more things at the same time are likely to be much more hazardous to ones health compared to trying to live in two cities simultaneously any where in the world, but in India, despite the computer revolution, the sine qua non for avoiding insanity is to have physical presence and ample time at hand for pretty much everything one needs to do for ‘living in a city’. Now this subject may or may not be good reading material but it definitely isn’t an exalted raison d'être.
So I have another reason for this blog, which is to dwell upon the issue of what ‘living’ really means. ‘Living in Goa’ is thus also an exercise in trying to discover myself, how do I want to ‘live’. What does it really mean to live? Of course different people would have different definitions of this concept. I want to understand mine better. The issue of identity, consciousness, space, time, goals all would enter the equation and herein lies the challenge. But more on this in my next post.
In light of the above, ‘Living in Goa’ is clearly not intended to be an extended travelogue. The objective here is to do two things. First, to talk about the tasks that one must undertake in order to ‘live’ in one’s second home, especially in India. These are tasks that an average traveler does not have to undertake when he is a just a visitor. I am of course talking about blood curling tasks like water and electricity bill payments, getting an LPG connection etc but also about social networking and other forms of human interaction on an intermittent but repeated basis. Here I have a faint hope that by sharing my experiences I may be able to, perhaps, help others who intend to go down this path. As I already stated in my first post, I wish to share and learn from others how does one accomplish this task without going insane.
Now, trying to juggle two jobs, two girlfriends/boyfriends or many other two or more things at the same time are likely to be much more hazardous to ones health compared to trying to live in two cities simultaneously any where in the world, but in India, despite the computer revolution, the sine qua non for avoiding insanity is to have physical presence and ample time at hand for pretty much everything one needs to do for ‘living in a city’. Now this subject may or may not be good reading material but it definitely isn’t an exalted raison d'être.
So I have another reason for this blog, which is to dwell upon the issue of what ‘living’ really means. ‘Living in Goa’ is thus also an exercise in trying to discover myself, how do I want to ‘live’. What does it really mean to live? Of course different people would have different definitions of this concept. I want to understand mine better. The issue of identity, consciousness, space, time, goals all would enter the equation and herein lies the challenge. But more on this in my next post.
