If I had not to follow goings-on in Goa ever since I came on Goanet which in turn led me to glance daily at the Goa e-newspapers, I would have been totally oblivious to the mess that is Goa. Once every couple of years I do go to Goa, but not for more than a fortnight at a time. During this time I am too busy visiting relatives or enjoying myself to take an interest in the larger issues.
Thank you Anthony Barretto for exposing the illegal denuding of forests in Canacona and the authorities complicity in it. Thank you Joe Goauk for all the pictures you send on Flicr. I don't think you realize this, but the sight of Goa in pictures disgusts me. I look at them closely and I see a land becoming nothing like what I would have pictured it should have been. Thank you too all the other posters who have opened my eyes to the Goa of today. I know the argument that will come my way. It has been thrown at people like me several times. Oh you dreamers, you guys who would like Goa to remain like what it was when you left it. Goa has progressed and it is the price that has to be paid for progress. Not everybody enjoyed the fruits of the land you speak of. Now it is more democratic, more vibrant, people have more money than ever and there is a buzz that was never there before. This is what I have to say to them: Keep your money and your dirt. Keep your apathy to what is going around you. Keep voting for the same politicians that rob you and the land blind. Keep on felicitating and fawning over them in Kuwait and elsewhere, wherever they go. Keep selling your properties for the lure of money that you don't really need. I am glad to have none of it. My biggest heartache when I left India was to sell off my mansion that I custom built from ground up with the dream that I would one day return to Goa from the Gulf to run my own business and live there. At least I made sure that I sold it off, not at the best price I could get, but to receive the satisfaction of having handed it off another Goan, even if he was a Hindu and mine owner. He assured me his family would live there moving from his own old ancestral house and I was glad to see that is what he did. Now I am at peace. I have finally received closure to my regrets. I am glad that I live in Canada where everything is so different to Goa. Here I have no advantage or disadvantage before the law. I can bribe no-one even if I wanted to. The police will jail me in a heartbeat if I drink more than the minimum and drive. If my car meets with an accident and I lie sprawled on the road, nobody will rob my wallet, my identity and my cellphone. If I get a heart attack or stroke, I can count on the ambulance and paramedics being at my side within 5 minutes. If I build even an insignificant patio extension to my house without municipal permission and their attendant rules governing it, it will get taken down without fuss or delay. And I can vote for a better politician if the current one wastes my tax dollars and can see other voters think and act like me, even if they end up voting for someone else whom they think is better. I am glad that when the press digs up the slightest whiff of scandal or the smallest public transgression of a person in authority, remedial and punitive action is taken forthwith. I am satisfied that even if the judicial process is a little slow, justice is almost always done. I am glad I am not in Goa. Roland Francis _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
