Vivek should have mentioned the columnist. The author of the piece, Sobha De, has long ceased to be a "gossip columnist." Those were the days when she edited Stardust. Today, to use the tagline for VM at the bottom, she's a "well published author". Maye what she writes in her novels is not liked by those like me, for I don't much fancy "pulp novels." Sex is what made her novels a novelty in the staid India that was a decade or so ago. I think Sobha de (nee Rajadhayaksha, a Saraswat Brahmin) has her deity in Goa. However, coming to the point one cannot give Goa a pass as it comes only behind Delhi as "rape capital" of India. With rampant tourism, Goa is bound to be on the sexual map of India and the film that shows that child sex on Goan beaches can be obtained for just Rs. 50 is an eyeopener. Unfortunately, Goa is in the news for wrong reasons. Fr. Peats put Goa up among the pedophile community and the rest, as they say, is history. I have yet to begin reading Refiruring Goa, From Trading Post to Tourist Destination, by Raghuraman S. Trichur, to know what future tourism will bring in its wake. Goa is not yet at the bottom, but the slid is obvious. Goans, more so like VM, must realize that unless things get better Goa must well go downline to the shoreline. Goa beaches are world famous, so they must not become notorious. Like VM, many of us what to save the "Goan character", but time and tide waits for no man. It's blowwing in the winds and Goa palm trees are shaking with realities that Goa is not a land that once was. As far as I can say, Goa is not a "victim" in the sordid episode of the ThinkFest. It is the innate nature of the person who's reponsible for putting Goa where it shouldn't belong. Tejpal having declared Goa to be the place for everything under the sun, such statements do more harm than good for Goa.
Eugene Correia
