Pednekar isn’t the only one who’s recently left a rave party in Goa feeling paranoid and unsafe. Siddhant Bawa, a 23-year-old business professional from New Delhi who was visiting Goa with his friends in October also attended a party at the same venue. He could see people going berserk for the music, and almost everyone sharing cigarettes or joints. There were private parties going on and people were sharing drinks and hooking up. “The vibe was absolutely crazy. Not for a moment, did I feel that we are still going through a global pandemic which is at its full strength,” Bawa told VICE News.“I knew people were properly partying now, but the scale of this one was just ridiculous. The whole experience felt stressful and unsafe.”
Goa is known as India’s “party destination” due to its cheap alcohol prices, coastline and lack of curfews for bars and clubs. More than 40 percent of the state’s revenue comes from tourism. India went into lockdown in March, and restrictions were eased in a phased manner only from May. The government lifted inter-state border restrictions in September, just before Goa’s tourism season began.“I came to Goa at the end of September, which was still off-season, so not a lot of places had opened at that point,” Ria Hingarh, a 27-year-old interior designer from the western Indian city of Mumbai, told VICE News. After staying shut in for six months, she was craving a psytrance party. Hingarh and her two male friends tried to attend an invite-only secret session at a club only to discover that they were given a fake address.Fernandes explained that one reason Goa continued to host rave parties during the pandemic was because the state did not have even a single COVID-19 case between late April and May. “After that, people here just stopped taking the virus that seriously.”
Suddenly, Hingarh found herself at a party dipped in the overpowering hue of purple LED lights and the pungent smell of sweat and smoke.“We realised that while the lower level was a bar broadcasting the match, there was an upper level filled with mostly foreigners where a proper rave party was happening.”
Aerath moved out of his parent’s home in Goa, and began living in a club venue along with other members of the community. Since then, he has been helping his tribe organise secret sessions. The entry to these get-togethers is by invite only.“We live by the principles of radical inclusion, self-expression, self-reliance, urgency to save the environment, civic responsibility, and participation.”