India has discovered Goa. It is like a giant Tsunami that is in the process of engulfing this little state. There is nothing anybody can do about it now that the big boys are seeking entry. DLF is only the first. The Thackeray gang and the other builder syndicates from land hungry Mumbai are making their plans even as we speak. There are many more like them from other parts of the country that are waiting in the wings. We are talking of builder combines that have such deep pockets that they are ready to pay city owners of 400 pocket-sized flats (500 sq ft or less) 2 crore rupees each, to vacate their houses to make way for their plans for grand constructions that will fetch them a 100 times more than their investments.
You think that Goa Bachao Abhiyan has sent a strong signal that nobody can ride roughshod over the wishes of the Goan people? Think again. These investors will stop at nothing. Monserrate and people of his ilk are mere puppets whose strings they pull for pastime. Once the strings break and the puppet cannot deliver, out it goes. An announcement in the local papers that the body of so and so was found on NH4 from a presumable hit and run. And enter another puppet with the lesson of the predecessor fresh in his mind. Deliver or we find someone else. And since you know so much about us, you can't expect to live, can you? Gruesome, yes - but true. Classical Mafia but also typically Indian gangster drama. That's the way it works. You will get a few interesting stories of how so and so Indian from some god-forsaken backwater of Alabama is scouting to build a few homes. That some rich Indian industrialist is building a bungalow palace that will make you weak in the knees when you enter it. That a group of old Canadian Goans are buying up apartments to get away from the harsh winters and stories in that tune, but that's all piss in the wind. It's the builders and their backers the Indian mafia dons that are going to be Goa's worst curse and there is nothing the Goan can do anything about it except become a part of it. You WILL sell your homes while you still get a price. Remember the offer you can't refuse. It's not fiction. It's the real way they operate. You have to take what they give (and they are quire generous) or spend a lifetime being brave enough to face their threats or have them box you in to the point where you will go begging to them and they will give you a fraction of what you want to sell is worth. What is happening now is just a trickle, large-scale as it is. The flood is yet to come and after the flood, the Tsunami. The moment India entered the free-for-all capital markets, Goa's doom was sealed. With the politicians she has had she is like a beautiful woman travelling on a dark road outside a maximum security prison facility from where many sex-starved long term inmates have just escaped. She never had a chance. Colorful expressions? Maybe. Doomsday predictions? Not quite. It has happened elsewhere before, in less likely places and history as everone knows, has a habit of repeating itself. So to every Goan who says "I will never sell my ancestral home" I will show you a thousand displaced land owning East Indians who are now relegated to living in a pokey flat on the 15 floor of a high rise who remembers his glory days over a drink and tells you "Arre what man, do you know that Ceasar Road was named after my uncle Caesar D'Mello" and "You know that big flat where Shahrukh Khan is staying?" Pointing his finger "That one man! It is built on the land that belonged to my father". This is not a pitch for you to sell and leave folks, it's just a new law that spells "One generation and you're out, land owning Goencars"!
