Revora-based Bina Nayak has a close connection to Parra, another village in Bardez. She grew up there and more recently saw the evolution of technology take a sleepy village to become a must visit location, not just in Goa but India, all thanks to social media. Being a media and advertising person herself, she thought of penning her emotions in a book, ‘Goagram – Misadventures of an influencer’. However, there is much more than what meets the eye.
The novel is based on Madhur Chopra, aka ‘Maddie’, a young fashion designer and social media influencer, who moves from Delhi to Goa during the second wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic. She hopes to make aesthetically beautiful vlogs in different locations in Goa while promoting her brand of clothing. Through her stay in Goa, she makes friends with many Goans, learns the language and experiences many ups and downs in her life.
“I used to live in Parra, next to our ancestral house, which is very close to ‘Maddani’ now known as ‘Dear Zindagi Road’. I’ve spent 20 years of my life living there and nobody knew about Parra then. While studying and working in Mumbai, most of my friends knew Calangute, Baga, Mapusa or Margao. But now, all that has changed. If you say Parra, people from outside Goa also will ask you where exactly. They know more about Parra than I do you. This is the change that has happened because of social media. In the beginning, I was very upset because this road is completely blocked off by tourists who are making reels there,” says Bina.
An independent graphic designer and communication specialist with a BFA from Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay, Bina has over 29 years in the advertising industry. Growing up and working in Mumbai, Bina returned back to Goa, where she focused on editing and completing her book, besides working on several advertisements and book covers.
While she started out writing the book in anger, it was only when she started following some influencers that she realised that every generation becomes better than the generation before and the same goes with how information is shared. “This generation has grown up with social media and I realized that whatever the influencers are doing, they are learning from people before them. That means that my generation started using Internet first in 1995 when I got my first Hotmail account. We were the first people who started using social media, and now you’re seeing the after effects of how we behaved on it,” she adds.
Speaking about influencers she says, “The current influencers were not even born or were just babies when Facebook first started, so you can’t blame them. The current generation that is interacting with social media has taken it to length that we didn’t even imagine possible. The times are also different. Now there are so many disparities economically that will be part of the same friend circle. Facebook is here to stay, so since I am also in the media, I taught my daughter the right way to be on social media. I told her not to post pictures, don’t check in, don’t get taken aback by trolling. Youngsters who are from small towns or whose parents are not well educated, will not be able to share their online presence with their parents.”
Bina has moulded the character of Madhu as a young middle class Delhi girl who was earlier denied opportunities in Delhi. “I have not shown her as a typical rich Delhites. In the beginning, in Goa we used to only see the rich Delhites but now since Covid, you see all levels of society. You have the smaller towns and middle class and people are here because you have a lot more freedom, respect and safety for women. My hope is when people come here rather than just coming for holidays, they should see the standard of Goa and take a little bit of Goa and make their place better. People who are coming in should also learn the language and give back to the society. A lot of artists who have come and settled here, they are doing that,” she explains.
‘Goagram – Misadventures of an influencer’ is published by HarperCollins and is available at Literati Bookshop and Café, Calangute, The Dogears Bookshop, Margao, Broadway Book Centre, Panjim, Crossword, Panjim and on different online platforms. Though the book was released on February 22, Bina requested for few early copies for the Goa Arts and Literary Festival (GALF), where the book as discussed. HarperCollins have a huge distribution so it’s available everywhere. I asked them to send a few copies for GALF, so they printed a few ahead,”
says Bina.
Bina will be in conversation with Mubina Ansari today at 5.30 pm at Literati Bookshop & Cafe, Calangute and for those who miss on this discussion, they can participate in the next smaller session on the book that will be held at Champaca Bookstore at Mahe, Anjuna on April 13.
For Bina, both the book were released within a few years. While her first book, ‘Starfish Pickle’ was written within three months, it took nearly 20 years for the book to be published while ‘Goagram’ was released in a few months. Speaking about the process behind both the books, Bina explains, “I wasn’t writing with the intention of getting published. I’m a graphic designer, so during the day I’m busy with assignments and then I write in the night as a hobby. The first book was written during a stressful time in 2003 within three months’ time. I write very obsessively when I have something to say. The plot was put down then I improve the parts. I kill a few characters and take out a few chapters and the story was done in three months. When I moved back to Goa, I had to update the story according to development in technology. However, I was always told that the protagonist, Tara Salgaonkar required work. She was career oriented and a lot of agents used to tell me to make her a nicer person. That time nobody was interested in getting women stories out, women stories were not even considered. It took long for the book to get published because the character was ahead of her times so I had to wait for the rest of the world to come up to her level. She became current only in 2021.”
Elaborating on the second book, she says, “The second book was easier because I understood what works and from my editors, I learnt about pacing. In a story, pacing is important. As a new writer, you cannot afford to have your reader get bored very quickly in the story. There were parts where the story will get slow and talk about emotions, you have to keep the plot consistent and that I learnt from ‘Starfish Pickle’.”