To Goanet - Based on the email feedback received on this entry, I would like to expand on a couple of points -
1) No, I do not avoid places and events inorder to avoid people. The bigger incentive (to avoid) is provided by what has become to the place itself. Case in point - Miramar. Walks along that beach used to be one of life's great pleasures. I grew up in the epsilon-neighborhood of Miramar. I don't go there anymore because it is painful to see what has become of it now - concrete eyesores ringing the beach, ghati hawkers, human waste, garbage and so on. The image conjured by the physicist David Mermin comes to mind: "dog turds on a well-manicured lawn." I would rather retain the old memories. 2) One fellow writes pompously that things don't remain static, that we have to accept change. This is a hackneyed truism. The important question is, what kind of changes? Have Indians since Independence built ANYTHING of worth? Any village, town or city that you can be proud of? No. Au contraire. We have turned the better things in our colonial legacy to sh*t. Name your city and you shall have your evidence - Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Panjim... This cant about accepting change as a fact of life is bogus. We must only strive for those changes that make life better, more bearable, more beautiful, more enriching, in harmony with our environment, and so on. By every measure Indians have striven vigorously for the exact opposite. Which is why the case of Goa is intensely sad. This was the last pocket of the civilized life left in India. Warm regards, r