Go Goa Gone

The dark underbelly of the sunshine state

- SURUCHI KAPUR GOMES

Goa may shimmer for the world, but beneath its beaches runs a hard, unvarnished saga of crime, corruption and a paradise quietly coming undone.

Goa gleams like a jewel in the Arabian Sea, its sundrenched beaches whispering promises of escape, where azure waves cradle barefoot dreams and the air hums with the lazy rhythm of susegad—that effortless Goan grace. Palm-fringed shores, vibrant markets, and sunsets that paint the sky in molten gold: this is the paradise peddled to the world. Yet, peel back the postcard veneer, and a shadow-self emerges sleazy, corrupt, festering with the rot of greed. For those who live here, it is a place sinking under the weight of stolen land, dirty money, and trafficked drugs.

Birch by Romeo Lane, a glitzy Arpora nightclub packed with partygoers, went up in flames in early December, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens more. Emergency exits didn't exist where they should have, safety clearances were allegedly ignored, and demolition orders that should have shuttered the club lay buried in bureaucratic dust. The club's owners the Luthra brothers—fled the country before surfacing in Thailand, where they were detained and later brought back.

Fringed by palms and washed by an Arabian Sea that turns molten gold at sunset, Goa's beaches have long promised a kind of easy grace wide, breathing shores where fishing nets dry in the sun and the horizon feels uncluttered. It is this beauty, fragile and magnetic, that now frames a far uglier truth.