Never in the wildest of dreams would I have imagined that a short drive that I was to have a couple of days back would turn into a nightmarish mis-adventure. It was an experience that will remain etched in my memories for a long time. It had been pouring cats and dogs throughout the day. When the rains subsided a little bit, I, along with a friend of mine, set out from my house which is located in St. Inez and proceeded towards the Miramar beach in my Maruti Van.
To my horrors, the road which so beautifully had been built a few months back resembled more like a river. Before I could have turned back half of my car was submerged into the water. Things got worse a few moments later as my car got stalled and stranded in the middle of the road. Both I and my friend got fully drenched while we unsuccessfully tried to get the stranded car off the main road and I then had to pay some street urchins quite a huge sum to get the car off. My own case was not an isolated one. I saw pedestrians wading through knee and waist-deep water in the dark as most of the imported street-lights along the stretch of the road were not working. The two-wheeler riders were perhaps the worst hit and they were having as much difficulty pushing their stalled bikes as mountaineers would have in scaling Mount Everest. I also noticed heavy water-logging near the bus stop and I pitied the plight of the commuters who would face great difficulties in entering and alighting from the bus to the ground. A friend of mine who owns a shop on that road mentioned to me how the rainwater, mixed with uncleared street garbage, had entered into his business establishment creating an awful stink and affecting his business. While he used to do brisk business otherwise, the huge craters near his shop had driven away all his customers and the authorities whom he had complained to were just refusing to pay heed. In the night, the Goan news channels flashed images of the sad and sorry plight of Goas Capital City. My wet experience had its telling effect on me and for a couple of days I ended up landing sick in the bed. The predicament I had been in made me realize how Parrikars grand talks of having converted Panjim into a dream city a la Cannes were nothing but his own grand delusions. All that he had done was apply mascara, lipstick, rouge and some cosmetic touches to the surface of the city and create and illusion that was bound to disappear sooner rather than later. It took only a few hours of cloudburst for the chinks in Parrikars tall claims to be exposed. When that happened, the straw-house that he had built by spending crores of rupees had collapsed. While after a scorching summer, one would have thought that the rains would provide some respite to the citizens of the city, the Rain-God instead turned out to be the most unlikely ugly bad wolf who had huffed and had puffed and had brought the city down. The verdict was now loud and clear: that Panjim was no more a dream city, it resembled more like an obstacle course full of trenches and water blocks and its inadequate infrastructure had made even a brief spell a nightmare for its residents; that Parrikar was a good and an efficient leader otherwise but his over-obsession in creating the IFFI infrastructure in a jiffy had cost the city and its residents dearly. The downpour also exposed the corruption and incompetence of the civic authorities led by the corrupt-gambler. Although works for desilting of storm water drains, asphalting of roads, cleaning of sewer lines and pruning of trees had been sanctioned, the city commissioner simply refused to issue work orders because his palms had not been greased. And his actions meant that it had rained only woes in the city. That a relatively short-lived downpour could cause such a great havoc in Goas multi-Crore-IFFI city is a tragedy. That another political party, instead of trying to help the civic authorities in clearing up the water-logged areas, decided to seek political mileage through it by organizing a swimming contest is another great tragedy. That those who show utter callousness and disregard for human life and dignity and inflict misery on thousands of city residents and yet continue to remain in office is the greatest tragedy of them all! Cheers Sandeep Heble Panaji-Goa __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
