India’s Goa sheds colonial legacy, 60 years after Portuguese rule

Colonial homes are falling into disrepair and Bollywood’s cultural influence is increasing, will local history be eradicated?

Lorraine Alberto teaches Portuguese language at Goa University, but students are in short supply in this former colony. Across Goa, a tiny coastal state once administered by Lisbon, there is little appetite for the territory’s 450 years of European heritage. Colonial homes that are falling into disrepair and Bollywood’s increasing cultural dominance portend the disappearance of local history in a place where speaking Portuguese was once a passport to status and power.