“Are you going to Goa?”, I asked a friend of mine when he told me that he is off to a holiday to have some fun and frolic in the sand. My eyes got excited when he said yes he was indeed going to Goa. I ended up saying “Oh lucky you!”. That is the power and the beauty of Goa.
Very few places have the ability to do that. The ability of invoking a strong desire within you wishing that you were there or that you could go along. Goa has that ability. It can evoke emotions of jealousy and envy when you are going to be stuck in the same city, slogging your ass when the person in front of you will be living it up in Goa in a few days.
What is completely amazing about Goa is that it has certain memories/pictures/perception attached to it for each and every person. For people who have been there once or more than once, the word Goa brings all those images back like a montage and there is an automatic smile and a feeling of flashback for them. For people who have never been to Goa, there is a strong sense of perception/imagination as to how the place is and how the experience of going to Goa will be, formed largely by what they have seen in films/television or through pictures posted on Facebook or shared with them by their friends who have visited it.
Goa is not the only town with beaches and great hotels. There are other places also across the country which may be having better or more beautiful beaches, but the brand image of this place is so strongly entrenched in the minds of people that when one mentions a great experience of sun, sand and sea, it is only Goa that comes to mind.
Putting down this blog has taken me down memory lane and as I write this all I can think of is when would I be on the other side being asked “Are you going to Goa” and on my yes the reply I would get would be “Oh lucky you!”
