Goa: Trance, Dulpod, & Mando

by Courtney Eileen Fulcher

I’d heard rumors about Goa: the raves in caves and all night parties on the beach.

It sounded a world away from central Madhya Pradesh, where I was studying abroad my final year before college, learning Hindi and practicing Bollywood singing. (Both of those activities felt like they deserved to have scare quotes around them, considering the glacial progress I was making.) Now as an adult, working in India through Fulbright-Nehru, I could finally investigate Goa's siren call.

I booked my flight for New Year's of 2024. I originally imagined flitting from party to party, scribbling in my reporter's notebook in the corner. I would be a fly on the wall; I would be Goa's Gossip Girl. But I forgot my reporter's notebook back in Pondicherry. Then I got food poisoning.

but it appeared to be long gone when I arrived.

My real discovery, thanks to a very long car ride from Central to South Goa, was Goa's tradition of Konkani and Portuguese music. Goa was only incorporated into India in 1961, fourteen years after Indian independence. Until 1961, Portuguese was its official language. Sylvester, my cab driver, played music I first thought was Portuguese thanks to the combination of brass and guitar. It was instead Konkani. Everywhere I've been in India, there are shops advertising USB drives full of the latest Bollywood hits or bhajans. Post-CD but pre-Bluetooth, they are an essential part of driving in India. I've never paid attention to them, lacking both a car and a USB port.

Techno dominates the restaurants, the bars, even the beaches. Billboards advertised celebrity DJs. I only saw one set at a bar before I keeled over. The people I was with knew I was writing about the music scene. They kept coming up and asking what I thought of the DJ. It was kind of boring, but I couldn't tell when I was being interrupted. I never heard the kind of music I associated with Goa, scuzzy 90's trance music equally easy to dance or fall asleep to. I thought I might finally get Goa Trance in Goa,

This month, I'm excited to bring a Coordinated Universal Time that is eclectic in scope despite covering such a small geographical area. Listening to Goa's dulpod, mando, and trance you might feel what I felt for a moment on the highway listening to Johnny B Gud: surprise and delight.

Tune into WKCR from 1-3am on Monday, March 11 to hear Courtney Eileen’s Coordinated Universal Time show!