The name ‘Banyan’ is thought to derive from the word ‘banya’, which means ‘trader’. Maybe in earlier times, Hindu travelling traders would rest and do their business within the shade of these trees. Irrespective of the source of the name, once identified and seen the Banyan trees are never forgotten. They are easily recognised. They are the trees with the numerous vertical hanging vines or roots which spread out from their branches and reach down into the ground below where they take root. On an old tree, and most of the trees we have seen are old, there is this mass and mess of hanging aerial roots which over time become thick and twisted but all remain connected to the main trunk. It is sometimes difficult to identify the original trunk of a particular tree. The leaves are large and leathery and look similar to the fig tree or bush. The younger leaves have this reddish tinge and provide a contrast with the older dark green elliptical-shaped glossy leaves. Apart from the hanging vines or roots, there are two other features of the tree which are remarkable. First, the older trees are usually huge. The jungle of the vertical aerial roots provides a stability for the tree that stretches over a significant territory. The canopy shade provided by the tree consequently is staggering. In the literature, there are stories of 7,000 soldiers sheltering under the tree, and early British colonialists identified and described Banyan trees covering an area of 846 metres. Apparently, one individual specimen in Andhra Pradesh provides cover and shade over some 19,000 square metres. The shade from the canopy cover provides an ideal playground for children, a shady spot to sit for travellers and passers-by and as a natural community centre for the villages in rural areas.
It is not only the size of the tree, however, that is of interest. The Banyan tree is often described as a ‘type of strangling fig’ and is I think a member of the fig family. Like the common fig, the tree produces little berries in pairs that are attached to the base of leaves from the stem. The berries are bright red when ripe. The seeds are dropped by feeding birds on the ground, on a tree or in a crack in a building. The forest ground is not a hospitable environment, but other trees, garden walls and buildings are more promising. The seeds start germinating, young saplings begin growing, continue to grow around the host trunk, and eventually, strangle the host through the considerable pressure on the host’s trunk. It eventually rots away often leaving a hollow central core. With the older trees that we have visited, there is no absent centre; the Banyan tree has expanded to fill the space and provide wonderful pictures of numerous twisted, contorted thick trunks that now form the main support of the tree.
Perhaps the most famous images of this ‘strangling’ characteristic of the tree is not from India but from Cambodia. Angkor Wat, the Khmer temple and city started in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, was left undisturbed from around the seventeenth century (the fall of the Khmer empire) until very recently. Dramatically visible at various parts of the complex are these gigantic trees rising above the stone walls and temple roofs which have enveloped the structures. The undisturbed periods have allowed the surrounding jungle to enter the temples and the Banyan trees to do their business. Thick roots spread down from great heights and creep out over the stone floors. In some places, the thick stone walls have been pushed aside leaving rubbles of stone. So dramatic are these images of the power and influence of these trees that they are hopefully likely to be left alone in the restoration work recently begun at Angkor.
While Susan and I were in Calcutta in 2012, we took the bus to the Indian Botanic Garden to see its most famous specimen ‘The Great Banyan’, said to be the largest tree in the world measuring more than 330 metres in circumference. The garden, from 2009 renamed as the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, is the proud home to this 200–250-year-old tree. The bus journey was, as ever, a bit of an adventure with local people and animals entering and leaving at intervals with their huge loads of produce and wares on their way to market. Crossing the cantilever designed Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly River we goggled at the packed pedestrian lanes crammed with bicycles carrying huge cloth-covered bundles of stuff and things. The Garden itself was a little disappointing. Established in 1787 by an army officer Colonel Robert Kyd of the East India Company the Garden has evolved over the last 250 years and is today a popular public park as well as an important venue for scientific study. The Garden’s collections of orchids, bamboos and palms are well-known collections from among its 12,000 specimens.
Today, however, the Garden is a little rundown with, I seem to remember, an absence of useable toilets! The Great Banyan Tree was not as visually dramatic as we had thought due to being struck by lightning in the early 1920s. The tree became diseased and in 1925 the middle of the tree was removed in order to save the remaining tree. There is no clear history of the tree but it is mentioned in early travel books and journals. So today, the world’s largest tree is not a single tree but a series of trees or colony, all linked to the original tree. The Great Banyan Tree today looks more like a forest than a single tree. The present crown of the tree has a circumference of about one kilometer – plenty of shade, then! A 330-metre road was built around the base of the tree as a form of protection but the tree continues to spread beyond the road.
It is not only the Banyan trees, however, that are worth finding and visiting in Goa. Another tree, for example, that fills my camera’s memory card is the Peepal Tree. It too appears to be a member of the fig tree family. Not quite so distinctive as the Banyan tree, this is a medium-sized, fast-growing deciduous tree. It has heart-shaped leaves and has a pair of small fig fruits growing just below the leaves. One of its major assets is its large crown with wonderful, wide-spreading branches – shade again.
The importance of both trees extends beyond their shade-providing qualities, important as that is. The Peepal tree for example is very important to all Indians and especially Buddhists who see the tree as the personification of Buddha. The tree is regarded as a sacred tree as Buddha attained enlightenment meditating under a Peepal tree. There is a saying attributed to Buddha which states, “He who worships the Peepal Tree will receive the same reward as if he worshiped me in person.” Hindus in India also hold great spiritual reverence for the Peepal tree as they regard it as the tree beneath which Vishnu was born. It is also a ‘wish-fulfilling tree’, and therefore it is not uncommon to find ribbons and cloth wrapped around the trunk of the tree.
Together with the shade and religious associations, both trees are important sources for many Ayurvedic medicines and also for commercial usage. Papermaking and rope fibres, for example, come from the Banyan tree.
Rapid social and economic change in the recent past is almost a given in Goa. The faster the pace of change the more intractable it seems are the competing claims of what and where Goa needs to go in the years ahead. It is therefore pleasant to be able to report on a small development that focuses on the opposite direction: namely, uncovering and recording Goa’s past – not so much its history but more about its past working lives, cultural items and transport forms. This is the Goa Chitra Museum which was opened around 2009 and has over 4,000 items representing traditional farming methods, arts, tools and crafts from ‘old’ Goa. Situated inland in south Goa and driven by the affectious enthusiasm and expertise of Victor Hugo Gomes, the museum is part of an organic farm and is an amazing collection of ethnographic utensils reflecting everyday life in a Goa largely before the arrival of electricity. All the items are fully described, using information and data obtained often from interviews and photographic evidence. The predominant focus as would be expected is on agricultural, rural trades – especially the coconut industry. Once second in importance after rice production in the state, today believe or not Goa depends on coconut supplies from outside the state. Tools (from farmers, tailors, barbers, masons, carpenters, for example), storage implements, weights and scales, modes of transport and religious items are some of the themes characterising the collections and rooms of the museum. It is a museum that on a local scale matches the qual
ity, detail and breadth of any other from around the world. It doesn’t have the ‘must have’ technological sophistication that seems to characterise other modern museums and is better for this absence. Instead of this omission, it has space (lots of it) and an unhurried atmosphere all driven by a friendly and knowledgeable staff. Here in this one site visitors (with a lot of time on their hands) can get a real feeling and understanding of the old agrarian ways, their craftsmanship and materiality. It’s difficult to believe that this wonderful opening to the old ways of Goa has been developed and driven by one man Victor, helped by his wife Aldina. If ‘the wisdom of the past’ which drives the collection could be matched by ‘the wisdom for the future’ in regard to Goa’s future developments, things would be good. Unfortunately this wisdom is in short supply.
Goa and tourism – dark clouds in the blue sky?
As might be expected, Goa is an important part of the Indian tourist sector. However, it is not as dominant as might be expected given the historical coverage in the Western media. It attracts around 13% of all foreign tourist arrivals to India. When domestic tourists are included, this totals around 2–3 million visitors a year. As a tourist destination for either foreign or domestic travellers in India, Goa does not figure in the ‘top ten’ destinations. The three most popular states for foreign tourists in 2011 were Maharashtra (25%), Tamil Nadu (17%) and Delhi (11%). For domestic tourists, they were Uttar Pradesh (18%), Andhra Pradesh (18%) and Tamil Nadu (16%). Such bald figures obviously mask a number of different agendas which will be explored later. Nevertheless, it is surprising and encouraging that for foreign travellers India does not simply mean Goa.
The growth of tourism in Goa is fairly recent. When the state first joined the Indian Union in the 1960s, its main industry was rich ores of iron and manganese exports. Further development was limited and tourism was introduced not only to increase incomes and employment but also to create non-manual employment opportunities. It was only in the 1980s that the first charter flight landed in the state. In 1985 there were around 700,000 tourists a year, mainly from other parts of India. In 2000, numbers crept up to around a million and then doubled three years later. The big times had arrived.
So who is going to Goa today? Beyond bald numbers, it’s difficult to answer this question with any confidence – different perspectives seem to arise depending on where you are based or visit. One of the major travel guides to India mentions the state being the “preserve of working class Brits and Scandinavians”. Perhaps. Certainly I remember discussing long-distance lorry driving in Britain on the beach in Goa with an elderly British tourist. He had been returning to the same coastal village in Goa for decades during the European winter, seemed to know everyone and had his daily routines which rarely changed. My own experiences suggested an elderly tourist, predominantly British and who treats their visits, people and village as their second home. Some of them have been staying with the same families, homestay or hotel for many years. They have seen the local family children grow up and in some cases attended their weddings. When I glance over the daily Goan newspapers, however, I realise how partial and limited is my experience. Reported stories and events mainly in the north of Goa, it must be said, didn’t fit with my observations. Maybe I am in bed too early most evenings but the ‘raves’, ‘wild parties’ and ‘happenings’ have not been part of my visits. Instead, talking and arguing late into the night with a steady supply of Cobra beers seems the norm.
I did come across an interesting survey which explored this topic more systematically than my own limited experiences. It was quite revealing. For all tourists to the state, the overwhelming number are males, single or groups of females; they constitute only around 7% of the total visitor numbers. The average length of stay again for all tourists is between one week and a month, although longer stays of 3–6 months are much more popular with foreign tourists. The most popular type of domestic tourism is package tours, followed by ‘individual explorer’ and ‘leisure’ visitors. For the overseas tourists, the overwhelming category is the ‘individual explorer’, followed by package and leisure types. Bottom of the list is sports and health tourism. In terms of the occupations of these visitors, the most common categories for both groups was the service sector, followed by business jobs for domestic visitors and students for the international tourist. The 2010 figures reveal that more than half the tourists are under the age of 30, while a large minority are between 50–60 years of age. Missing are the group between 30–50.
However, all is not well. Goa today is struggling to keep pace with India’s growing tourist industry. Over the last five years, the state’s growth has been less than 1%. The attraction of sunny beaches has not been sufficient to keep Goa in the top 20 destinations for domestic tourists and is not in the top ten destinations for foreign tourists. While other popular destinations such as Rajasthan and Kerala have forged ahead as attractive destinations for overseas visitors (around 8% growth rates), Goa saw only 1% growth. Talking to any of the Western ‘returners’ about Goa elicits a very similar response about decline and degradation. As always, things were much better in the past; the beaches were less polluted and less crowded, the coastal villages are now overrun with package tourist hotels and facilities, local people have been squeezed out and replaced by outsiders from other parts of India who are keen on making a quick buck, timeshare developments are everywhere, vendors of tourist goods are overrunning villages – the list could go on. There will be a lot of truth in these observations, but on the other hand, most other tourist hotspots will also be very different today – things change. However, a number of research reports and a regular diet of negative news in the Indian newspapers do contribute towards a growing realisation that things today are not going well. Typical are the following comments from Outlook magazine: “The worst affected are the 34 beaches along the 105 kilometre coastal stretch. The coastal areas have changed from virtually wilderness in the 70s to haphazardly developed structures. A stroll down Calangute,” the magazine continues, “is enough to bear that out. The shop-lined stretch to the beach feels like a dirty, grimy lane… Just behind the many beach shacks lies a huge ugly dump of plastic and waste. The lack of garbage management continues to be an eternal woe.” It’s not difficult to find other comments in a similar vein. “It used to be a long, pleasant walk from Sinquerim all the way to Calangute. Now, Candolim and Calangute have become trash bins,” said a local resident.
However, the explosion of mass tourism to Goa over the last couple of decades has been breathtaking. In the case of Russian-speaking and Eastern European tourists for example, the Goa’s tourist website reports an increase from 13% in 2010 to 30% in 2011, the highest jump of any nationality. In 2008–9 there were 179 charter flights a year. A year later this figure had risen to 259 charter flights. In 2013, there were 996. The Times of India reported that 1,400 charter flights will link Goa to the West in 2013, while an increasing flow from the rest of India will continue. Russian-speaking tourists are making up for the shortfall of visitors from the UK and elsewhere. There are other stories. The EPW (Economic and Political Weekly) in 2013 for example reported, “tensions simmering for some years now between the local population and the Israeli and Russian speaking tourists accused of setting up ‘exclusives’ in Goa where Indians are not welcome.” “Russian mafia” and “Israeli mafia” are terms used quite frequently in the media. And in some places like Morjim in the north, it is all Russian speakers apparently.
However, things can change quickly. I was in Goa in January 2015 and 2016. Due to the Ukrainian-Russian issues, the collapse of oil prices and the tightening of Western economic sanctions, the Russian rouble was in freefall. The number of visitors from Eastern Europe and Russia had collapsed. Rumours abounded of the number of cancelled flights coming into Goa. It wasn’t only from these destinations. Charter flights from Germany via Condor Airlines to Goa were discontinued in 2015 after a period of 30 years. The reasons given by Condor was “all-round disenchantment w
ith the State” and the high costs of using the state airport.
But it isn’t only the pesky tourists. Mining companies, most of which are illegal, continued to operate quite openly. The Shah Commission set up in September 2013 to look at this problem suggested that “around 90% of the mining leases in Goa are being operated illegally.” The demand for iron ore from China has fuelled an export bonanza with nearly a four-fold increase in little over a decade. A few years ago there were around 22,000 trucks involved in the transportation of ore to the landing jetties. From here the ore is moved in barges to the ports; there are 357 barges operating recently, up from 136 fifteen years ago. This unprecedented boom in mining and disregard for the law and regulations within the state could only have been possible through the involvement of politicians and civil servants as most locals acknowledged. Historically the mining lobby, interests and influence have been a powerful and intimidating force in Goa. A compliant and submissive media helped sustain this power. Resentment against the environmental damage, unaccountability and financial exploitation of the sector had been growing for some time. Hardly a week passed without another anti-mining story. News media outlets, campaigning groups and local activists are challenging these powerful interest groups. Recently for example, villagers in the Quepem area in south Goa halted all mining activities as the company was operating without proper clearance.
Banyan Tree Adventures Page 13