GOA, India (AP) – The golden rays of the sun fall on the smooth, sandy beaches of Goa every night, magical as ever, but strangely calm and lonely. This holiday season, few visitors enjoy the famous sunsets in the Indian party hotspot.
The unspoken fear of the coronavirus affects the vibrant beaches of Goa and the noisy bars of their blood.
A Portuguese colony until 1961, this western Indian state usually comes to life in December and January, its economy driven by booming tourism with foreign travelers and chartered flights bringing hordes of tourists.
In the last decade, Goa has turned from a seasonal mecca for both hippy hikers and wealthy tourists into a second home destination for India’s middle class. Construction was booming, raising concerns about the impact on fragile environments. Apartments with sea views, river fronts or surrounded by forests were in high demand.
The pandemic and the travel restrictions that followed changed everything, possible forever.
Along the popular beaches of North Goa, from Candolim to Calangute to Morjim, many cafes, tattoo parlors and boat bars with sunbeds have been permanently closed. Nightlife in popular party centers is dead.
Seema Rajgarh, 37, is a lone figure on the almost deserted Utorda beach in South Goa, her blue sari sitting on the expanse of the Arabian Sea as she pulls jewelry out of beads and stones. None of the few domestic tourists are interested in buying them.
On the good days of the holiday season, the mother of three girls, the youngest of two years, said she used to make 2,000 rupees ($ 27).
Now the times are gloomy.
“A few days, I make only 200 rupees ($ 2.7), not enough to buy milk and food for my children,” she said.
Rajgarh’s husband, a cook, lost his job during the nationwide blockade imposed in March to contain the spread of coronavirus infections. He remains unemployed.
School fees for children are long overdue. The rent is three months ago.
“This virus has devastated our lives,” Rajgarh said.
In 2019, over 8 million tourists visited Goa, including over 930,000 foreign tourists. About 800 leased flights arrived from Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Japan, among other countries, according to the state tourism department.
In August, only 1.1 million had visited, including just over 280,000 foreign tourists.
An official report on the impact of COVID-19 on Goa, published in December, estimated a loss of nearly $ 1 billion for the tourism industry due to the April-May blockade. Potential job losses are expected to be between 35% and 58%. More than one in three of Goa’s 1.6 million people work in tourism.
Goa accounted for more than 51,000 of the more than 10 million reported cases of coronavirus in India, with 749 deaths. The persistent consequences of the sudden interruption of economic activity have tempted many business owners to give up.
Sitting at home last summer during the blockade, designer Suman Bhat, whose luxury label “Lola by SumanB”, with its flowing draped silhouettes, is popular with Bollywood stars, has struggled to close its iconic Goa store, Panjim. , or wait for sales to decline.
Bhat managed to retain its workers, but had to give up her beloved retail space, moving to a less expensive location in August.
“It simply came to our notice then. You put so much money into the business to create a customer experience – and that’s completely taken away. There is no way for anyone to see you, touch and feel the product, ”she said.
Bhat says its workers are exhausted by the new routines of sanitation, testing and concern. With the end of the pandemic still unseen, the future remains uncertain.
“Can my clothes be worn in the evening when there is no evening to go to? Is it right to ask people to pay this kind of money when everyone is trying to save? She wondered.
“Everyone is just exhausted. You don’t know when a worker will say he has a fever. What are you doing? Close everything? Tell everyone to test, sanitize and spray everything? You are in the way of solving problems all the time “, she said.
A few months after the blockade began to ease, Goa is showing signs of life. Domestic tourist arrivals increased during the end-of-year holidays. Casinos have been reopened and visitors are no longer required to submit negative coronavirus test reports, unlike most other Indian states.
But things are not returning to normal.
Yoga teacher Sharanya Narayanan strives to understand what is lost.
Narayanan, 34, came to Goa from Mumbai in 2008 to perform aerobatics at a club and stayed home.
He taught in several locations, but had to switch to virtual lessons during the crash. When the wellness centers were allowed to reopen in August, only one of her jobs returned – her own private class.
“The pandemic has changed everyone’s lives – including mine,” she said.
“I miss the feeling of anonymity I enjoyed earlier in Goa. That every time I didn’t have the same set of people to meet, it was always changing, evolving, so I was able to recreate myself without a feeling of stagnation, “she said. “The transient nature of things is so appealing to Goa.”