When Goa Was a Paradise and Life Moved at Its Own Gentle Pace

Vithal Kamat
There was a time when Goa truly felt like paradise.
I count myself among the fortunate Goans who lived it and not just visited it for a weekend. It was a Goa of simplicity and silence, where mornings arrived without honking horns and nights settled without blaring music. Life moved gently, unhurried and humane. People were easygoing, content in their routines, bound more by community than by ambition. Hindus and Catholics lived side by side, not as a slogan but as a lived reality, sharing festivals, neighbourhoods and everyday life. It was a place that breathed peace.
Those days are gone. They survive now only in memory.
The clean cities, towns and beaches that once defined Goa have largely disappeared. The famed susegad lifestyle has been hollowed out and replaced by something harsh and exhausting. What was once laid-back is now overcrowded. What was orderly is now chaotic. What was pristine is increasingly dirty. The magic that gave Goa its spirit and charm has been diluted to the point where it feels more like a marketing phrase than a lived truth.
The downward slide began in the 1980s, when the first major wave of tourists and migrants from other Indian states discovered Goa as a cheap and permissive holiday destination. Tourism, instead of being shaped thoughtfully, was allowed to grow unchecked. Many who arrived brought little respect for the land or its people. Loudness replaced courtesy. Carelessness replaced civic sense. This behaviour was not limited to the uneducated. It extended equally to those who should have known better.
With them came roadside stalls choking pavements, unchecked peddling, and an explosion of begging that would once have been unthinkable. Public spaces deteriorated. Beaches became dumping grounds. Alcohol-fuelled nuisance turned routine. Young men and women, freed from parental oversight and social restraint, behaved recklessly, treating Goa not as someone’s home but as a consequence-free escape.
The decision to introduce casinos marks a particularly dark chapter. It is difficult to see it as anything but reckless and short-sighted. Casinos brought with them an unsavoury ecosystem. Crime, exploitation and prostitution followed naturally. To pretend that powerful political interests are not profiting from this decay would be dishonest.
Governance has failed repeatedly. Governments have been ineffective, politicians corrupt and vision absent. Greed has trumped responsibility. Short-term revenue has been prioritised over long-term sustainability. Planning has given way to opportunism, and accountability has all but vanished.
I wish for the impossible. The return of that Goa which lived in balance with its land, its rivers and its people. A Goa that respected itself enough to protect what made it special.
For those of us who experienced that earlier Goa, we are the lucky ones. We carry within us the memory of a paradise that will never return. What remains is not just nostalgia, but a quiet, enduring lament for what was lost, perhaps forever.