Hello Goodnight: A Life of Goa

Goa became a landmark on the hippie trail through India in the 1960s, thanks to its too-good-to-be-true beaches and laidback lifestyle. But the first western visitors to reach this idyllic locale arrived much earlier: they came from Portugal in the sixteenth century and claimed Goa on behalf of their King and their God.

David Tomory explores the outside influences at work on Goa from the time of the Portuguese to the present day and how they have fused with local culture to produce a distinctly different India state. From the horrors of the Inquisition to the rise of Génération Techno, he provides an entertaining and informative tour through the life of Goa. He reveals what Goa is actually like for both westerners and Goans, and catches Goa as it stands on the brink of a complicated future.

Goa is a state on the Konkan coast of India that before 1962 belonged to Portugal--a place that Tomory describes in^B his prologue as "a beach destination away from the winter, and cheap." It comprises three longitudinal strips: the beach and its hinterland, the midlands, and the Ghats, all of which are distinct from each other in geography and history. Tomory writes of its rivers and marshes, villages and temples, cactus, coconut groves, sand dunes, and the sea. He describes exotic birds, armies of ants, snakes, frogs, cicadas, mosquitoes--and always the oppressive heat. He analyzes the outside influences at work in the state from the time of the Portuguese to the present. Tomory, who first went to India in 1971, also gives us a history of the region, beginning in 1510 when 20 Portuguese ships arrived there and claimed Goa on behalf of Portugal's king. The author explores Goa's religions, culture, people, lifestyles, and geography, shedding light on a little-known part of the world. George Cohen
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