Not too long ago the news was full of the iconic Tito’s restaurant and night club, and even though the sale deed had not been signed, diehard fans in Goa and India, and internationally, were showing their disappointment one way or other.
Now, let us take a peek at the great Calungute movie which has been going on for decades and which older people can recall well. Tito’s is an important part of the story. When the hippies came to Goa the village of Calungute was a village and not a town which means there was little development. The hippies who were nature loving children got off the boat and headed straight for the villages. Too many hippies, too few houses, and too few rooms made our fishermen rent all their huts and houses to foreigners while they - the fishermen - slept under the open sky for a while. , Over the years, more hippies more houses, yes, more hippies more ILLEGAL houses. The village economy was a reality with money trickling steadily and more often flowing into the houses and pockets of the local Calungutians. Calungutian locals of importance now included sarpanches, panchas and MLAs who were more than glad to shut one eye and close the other to all the illegalities going round and round - a lovely merry go round for all. Something for everyone, rooms and more rooms and more illegal rooms and houses was the way to go! Goan identity? Everyone was happy, and Goa and Calungute in particular was Paradise on Earth. No need to die to go to heaven. The cake got bigger and people got organized to get a larger serving of the cake. And mafias of a variety were born: motorcycles, taxis, drugs soft and hard, prostitution and dance places with booze flowing in great quantities. People from other states had their tongues hanging out and looked real thirsty for booze, and more. Goa was highlighted in magazines and Bollywood as a place to have fun and where anything goes! No feat of the imagination this - only holding up a mirror to reality. Now covid has given everyone a nice shake up, people cannot travel easily and it is a time not of hedonistic living, more to do with tightening our belts. Businesses are trying to survive. The tourists footfalls are few and far between in Goa nowadays. With the historic CZMP meeting having taken place even though students are still studying online due to the pandemic, the meeting to finalize CRZ lines and protect the environment was a must notwithstanding. Our ministers need to be congratulated for their doggedness and commitment to protecting the ecology of our state. When the CRZ lines are drawn it will be a great achievement as it it will be clear to see which structures in Calungute and other places are illegal. The demarcation of zones are not decoration on the map but legal lines that clearly show what can be done within each zone. Even if structures will not be shown on the maps, illegal structures on the ground can easily be identified and should be demolished as CRZ is not a new law, and the presence of illegal structures is breaking the law. The government must not support or appear to support and reward illegal activities in Calungute or anywhere else in Goa or our government will become a laughingstock everywhere in the world. If old illegal structures can be easily identified and are not demolished - can we tell people not to build new illegal structures in future in Goa? On what grounds?
