What is "susegad"

Susegad is a concept associated with the Indian state of Goa. Derived from the Portuguese word ("quiet"), it is normally mistaken for the relaxed, laid-back attitude towards life that is said to have existed historically in Goa, a former Portuguese territory. Footprint Travel Guides describes it as "a relaxed attitude and enjoyment of life to the fullest". What Susegad actually means, according to most experts, is a contented form of life existent in the state. As described by one Sunday Times writer, Goa is "South Asia's Latin Quarter: indulgent, tolerant, capricious, steeped in a tropical lassitude and wedded to the sea".

The concept may also carry negative connotations such as "indolence" and in recent years it has been suggested that the relaxed Goan culture of susegad has given way in the face of modern stresses. In addition, it is an example of what some ethnographers point out—i.e., "tourism representations of the Orient as the west's exotic, timeless and authentic pleasure periphery are embedded with a colonial discourse that perpetuates the west's hegemonic exploitation of the Orient".