A year in Goa...

Hi Blog! Longgggg time no c... A year living in Goa now. And I am still the same. You would think I would've gotten a girlfriend by now, tried coke / hash / at least weed, partied my arse off, indulged in groupsex (ok, now that's taking things too far, but what the heck! we're just imagining). Yeah, even I thought that after so much time in Hippie Heaven, I could tick most of those boxes. But, unfortunately, you know what? I haven't done any of those things. And, surprisingly, there's a part of me that's ok with it. Is that abnormal? Am I growing old? Or is it just who I am? Or I'm just chickenshit. I guess we'll never find out.

Anyways, being here for a year now has made me realise a few things about Goa:

1. Contrary to popular belief, all Goans (or Goenkars as they are called in Konkani) don't run hotels or restaurants or bars or wineshops. There is a huge chunk of people that is engaged in serious economic activity. I'm talking REAL people. With REAL jobs. Who go to work everyday and come back home to the wife. I know its quite obvious, every place has that group of people. But I always thought of this place as a tourist place with nothing else to it. Well, call me naive!

2. That brings me to my second point. Did you know that tourism is not the only big money-grosser for Goa. There's also iron ore mining. A huge chunk of the state's revenue comes from mining and allied industry (logistics etc.), which is now taking a huge beating, as all commodities are.

3. Tweeting (www.twitter.com/nvavi) is taking out all the blogging from me. Ok, this isn't a realisation about Goa, but nevertheless. Its a good thing, this tweeting. But, is it an alternative to blogging? Its like one big blog gets taken out you bit by bit, each tweet you do. Or does it.

I think that should make for another blog post. Ciao for now, fellas