PANAJI
It's not unusual for names of Goan streets, cities, villages and locales to get distorted in tourist communications on the world wide web but this one takes the cake -- 'Bigdi Balam' beach for an area around the famed Gaspar Dias beach but now popularly known as Miramar hugging the capital Panaji.
Some unknown tourist has referred to the area around Miramar beach as 'Bigdi Balam' with no sign of 'Miramar' anywhere in the geographical locality when scanning the geographical area on Google Maps. The name 'Bigdi Balam Beach' pops up on Google Maps in devanagari Hindi.
The names of Goan villages have often got distorted in the past. Even road signs put up by local or railway authorities have gone erroneous at many places. But with the 'Bigdi Balam' distortion for Miramar beach has now made this distortion of names creep onto the world-wide-web.
The original name of Miramar beach was 'Gaspar de Dias' and is one among Goa's famed beaches. However, many tourists who commute by hiring self-driven vehicles take the aid of Google Maps to find it.
Although the 'Miramar Beach' option also comes up on Google Maps and leads you there. But if you search 'Bigdi Balam Beach' the option 'Miramar Beach' disappears and 'Bigdi Balam Beach' and 'Caranzalem Beach' appear in the entire stretch.
The physical Miramar area does show up on the map but the 'Miramar Beach' title is substituted by the name 'Bigdi Balam Beach' which in Hindi means 'partner of ill-repute'.
