Goa plays hosts to tens of thousands of visitors every year from all over the country and the world. The beauty of the place and its charm can work its magic on people from all over. Here are four multiracial couples who have made Goa their home. One half of all these couples is a foreigner drawn by their love for their partner and the state.
Asheen Lobo and Elisa Kantoniemi
The Start: Asheen Lobo runs a restaurant in Candolim, where he met Elisa, through common friends. Asheen says, “Elisa is a wedding photographer who wanted to stay in India and later travelled to Goa as a tourist in 2008. We were friends for a year before we went out.” Elisa adds, “I have always loved Indian culture. I like the contrast between Finland and India. As a wedding photographer, I have done Hindu and Christian weddings. Weddings are so different between the communities and also between here and Finland. We got married in 2019. It was a small court marriage. We needed a lot of paperwork which we had to get from Finland. We had a small party for friends.” Asheen says it has been great and he would recommend married life to everyone.
Why Goa
Elisa says, “Goa is so laid back, it is easy to live here. It is hard to pinpoint what it is but I just love it here. The overall atmosphere, the laid back stress free environment ensures that life is awesome. For Asheen, Goa is home. He loves to travel to a new destination every year but it is great to be back home in Goa at the end of it all.
Lili and Shrey Tandon
The start: The couple met thanks to common friends in Chennai. Lili’s friend was doing volunteer work in India. Shrey says, “I have to thank her because of her I met my future wife. Lili was struggling with the spicy food in Chennai. She was distressed. I made some simple food. If I was not a musician, I would have been a chef in a roadside dhaba. That food certainly settled her.” Lili remembers when she introduced herself, Shrey yelled out that she shared a name with his mother. They got married in December 2021 in Kanpur as per the special marriage act, the city where he was born. His parents, a lawyer and an uncle were only present. Lili wore a saree and her only worry was how she would be able to manage with all that cloth. “It was fun but it was crazy,” she says. They had a party in Goa two years later where her father was present. For Lili, life has been very good since she was in a long distance relationship after the marriage. She spent time in Germany and she missed her husband a lot. Shrey says it has been good and the decision to move to Goa was made keeping in light their value systems.
Why Goa
Shrey says that despite living in Chennai and it being multicultural, he always felt like an outsider. They selected Goa because it was multicultural and he could see a lot of things like sustainability being practised here. There was importance placed on hygiene, cleanliness and mental health which was important to both of them. As a musician, he got to play with very good musicians in events which were very professional.
Andrea Thumshirn and Aditya Rai
The Start: A German national, Andrea was heading the sports department at an international school in Mumbai. She met Aditya at the school where he was heading the basketball program. They had similar interests in sports and changing the sports infrastructure in India. She had also created an NGO in Rajasthan, teaching hockey. She says, “I wanted to show that sports and education can go together. Aditya and I are on the same page. He came with me to Rajasthan and helped me. The project ended in 2017 and we decided to come together and spend our future with each other.” The couple contemplating about living in India and even though Aditya is from Mumbai, he had enough of the big city life. They then decided to live in Goa.
Why Goa
Andrea says, “We used to spend our holidays in Agonda but we also had to find a way to earn money. We were missing a good breakfast option. We thought a cafe would be a good idea. We set up an organic German bakery in Benaulim to make German bread.” Aditya said, “We chose south Goa, we can call Goa our home and we are part of the community. Life is challenging but great, can’t complain.”
Nupura and Hannu Hautamaki
The Start: This couple met in Mumbai when Nupura was in a marketing agency and Hannu was heading the operations of a Finnish company in India. Nupura says, “It was not love at first sight. He is very quiet. The first meeting took place in a restaurant organised by another Finnish friend. A couple of days later, my company was shooting an internal training film for a car company and all candidates for the evil foreign CEO were rejected. I then asked my friend about Hannu and it happened.” Hannu says, “My first impression of her was that she was an interesting person.”
The couple got married in 2008. It was a court marriage and then there was a party in the forest where Christian and Hindu rites were performed. Nupura says, “It was crazy, I came as a bride in a JCB truck which surprised Hannu and his relatives”. When they lived in Finland, celebrating Diwali was a depressing affair whereas Nupura felt India is a joyous noisy place.
Why Goa
Nupura was born in Mumbai and was abroad for fifteen years. Hannu did not want to go back and stay in another city and he loved India. Nupura’s mother is Goan and she wanted to come back to her roots. Goa, they reasoned, was close to Mumbai and was good with health services. The quality of life in Goa was so much better with the benefits of city life available and so the decision was made.