My dear dear Valanka, Greetings to you from a long-time acquaintance of your dear dear papa, who could have passed-off as a sort of a friend of Goa's dynamic personality and go getter, Mr. Churchill Braz Alemao. I have always admired your papa's forwardness and gate-crashing presence since a long time ago when he was leading the UGDP. And at that time I had thought, with a great deal of inner conviction, that if your papa remains stuck to the UGDP like a leech gettig stuck to sucking blood, it would be difficult for any one in Goa to come close to him as the leader of Goa to take control of this God's own heaven which has gone on to become a hell. But, alas !, that was not to be. And the inner conviction that I had about your papa, then, started eating into me for having been wrong, because I am seldom wrong in matters which affect Goa and Goans. I must say, at this moment, that I had fallen for your papa's emotional 'gimmicks' just like a whole lot of Goans have gotten mesmerized.
In the biblical times, a section of much harassed people were awaiting the coming of a Savior. That Saviour did come circa 2007 years ago, not only to deliver them from corrupt tax-collectors and hypocritical and selfish Rulers and Kings alike, but also to take the world by storm. For me, with your papa leading the UGDP, he was like biblical MOSES parting the Red Sea to save his people from their enemies. At that time I was warned, and warned again, not to fall for emotional gimmicks that was your papa. But I was hooked in my own way, that would not be prejudicial to anyone. My conviction was re-enforced more so when your papa had publicly reassured one of his faithful supporters when he had posed this question to him "WILL YOU JOIN THE CONGRESS?" This was when both the candidates fielded by the UGDP under your papa's leadership had lost the Parliamentary Elections a long time ago, with your papa having been the South Goa candidate and Babuso Gaunkar, the North Goa candidate. And your papa's response to this poser was 'MOLLOUB DOT 'TOREK TENKOT PUNN VOH CHURCHILL KEDNANCH CONGRESSAN VECHEAK NAM" As a witness to this dramatic public display at Vidhya Niketan, Margao, I had thought that my conviction was a 1000 % right about your papa. But Alas! It didn't take more than a few months for your papa to renege on his word so publicly given. When he joined the CONGRESS, I thought that the whole of my inside had burst open and the conviction that I had held about your papa was running away from me, leaving me empty and bare. Goa had lost a leader to hypocrisy and my dear Goa was going to be floored and trampled upon with no one being there to stand tall and call out boldly '?? WHO GOES THERE??.' But fortunately, I am a person who does not lose heart and run to the nearest tree to do the JUDAS in despair, in the thinking that if GOA has to go down, I too will go down, but fighting all the way. I mustered enough inner strength to build a newer, more stabler conviction that was needed for GOA, never to trust the future of GOA in the hands of a 'one man leadership' that could buckle down if the price was high enough and just about right, to leave Goa to the screaming hungry hyenas. in its times of dire need of being SAVED. GOA needed a team of leaders, dispensable, if need be, who would put down a SYSTEM by which Goa's Governance would run, on its own, so that Goans could be delivered from the ever growing hungry hyenas, just like Moses delivered his people from the wrath of their enemies by parting the Red Sea. It did take many years but perseverance prevailed and GOA was given a present in the form of 'GOA SU-RAJ PARTY'. It was not a hurriedly put together political party. It had the entire written down SYSTEM to go with it which mostly spelled 'self-sacrifice'. The reason for founding this party was that the UGDP had floundered with having no Captain to cling to its helm in the stormy weather that it found itself in after the exit of Captain Churchill Alemao. And Goa remained virtually free for all, to be snatched and plundered. When your papa came out of the Congress to float the SGF, we knew exactly the course that this hurriedly put together contraption would take. And we also knew well that Congress and the NCP and the BJP (read National Parties) would not allow this fast gaining strenght regional outfit to live much longer for their own good. The dying wish of your papa's close friend and well-wisher, Mr. Alberto Leitao, whom you must know well, was that your papa should go back to salvage the floundered UGDP and sail with it alongside the love that Albert Leitao had found worthwhile in the Goa Su-Raj Party, of which he was the Vice President, and go ahead and sail together to take over the reins of Goa, once and for all. And I had personally hammered out dear Albert's message at the time when his body was lowered into the grave at the Varca cemetery in the presence of your papa. But circumstances made your papa follow his inner instincts to think in terms of forming SGF. Now that your gullible papa has been conned by the Delhiwallas and the Goawallas, as was amply expected, you need not lose heart, dear Valanka. If at all your papa has done things which are not at all in good taste, he has done them for you. Every papa will want an enterprising and intelligent daughter of his to follow in his foot-steps, and more so. The sacrifice is so great that a papa will not mind even if he loses everything to see his daughter on a pedestal of excellence. Your papa has been true to himself and to his immediate family. Perhaps, he desires that you accomplish things where he has failed. But how many of those 'Save Goa' sentiments are genuine is under the microscope, especially when your dear papa wanted to abort the very child he had helped give life to.. We have seen your papa in bad times and good in all these years of his political activism. And he has certainly worked hard to keep GOA alive so that she could GIVE, GIVE and GIVE, more importantly to himself, even if it meant her own demise. Through thick and thin, your papa has seen to it that you would get the CONGRESS ticket for the seat that he had vacated keeping you in mind in the first place, even if it meant the death to his new-born love, the SGF. And he is right about how he feels. He was probably never comfortable with the rabble that he had surrounded himself with, who, at the slightest rocking of the boat, swam across to the enemy ship, to fire in return, the drowning salvos at the ship that was their own. We have known of LIONS who would chew on lotuses, abundantly found in our Goan Lakes, when they were acutely hungry, for want of a prey. But the tables have turned in these demanding times where the same harmless looking LOTUSSES have turned carnivores and have not been just eating but gobbling weak hearted LIONS (read Wilfred Mesquita) with utter relish and satisfaction. But for the role of the sole resisting Reginaldo Lourenco, however selfish that he might have been, SGF would have been already fed to the vultures and done with. But a lame duck can go only so far before biting dust. Sooner than later it will be the REQUIEM for SGF. Anybody would have thought that the normal thing to do for a person of your papa's stature, when he has hated the CONGRESS with his entire being, enough to send home packing the most solidly rooted ring-masters of Navelim and Curtorim, would be to let you, dear Valanka, fly the flag of his new-born love, the SGF, in the ensuing MPs elections as its honorable 'Jansi ki Rani. And the whole of Sough Goa would have done you obeisance with pride in their hearts. But your papa has baffled not only the in-house weak-hearted Lions but also the entire generation of Goans by wanting to secure for you the ticket of the CORRUPT CONGRESS. For, if you had to land the Congress ticket, you would probably have won the seat to become the SOUTH GOA KI POODLE RANI who would be required to lick every ear in the corrupt Congress hierarchy in Delhi to the detriment of Goa and Goans. And you would be used and abused at will. This my dear Valanka is the Congress Culture that you have inadvertently opted for. It is a pity that a papa such as yours had wished something like that for his most enterprising daughter. Consider that it is only God send that you didn't land the Congress Ticket. Whatever that has happened, do not sit in the corner and sulk away your future. We know that you are made of better stuff than that. Boldly take hold of your demoralized and hissing papa and go about to beat to pulp the most weak-hearted and two timing Lion that has been assimilated and ejected as the ugly lotus. It is indeed funny to hear this Lion say that his new-found love on the rebound (the BJP) is the only party that can protect Goa. You must now ask this hypocrite publicly if 'Save Goa Front' which he helped put together with your papa had no intentions of PROTECTING GOA?? And protect it he must from the ranks of communal and corrupt BJP??? We would be with you, dear Valanka, to ask these questions if we did not consider both the Congress, with which you seem to have identified yourself despite your papa's 'SAVE GOA' 'coat', and the 'rag' that the disenchanted Lion has adorned himself with (read BJP), as two rival hungry packs of hyenas that want to tear Goa apart between themselves. And whoever wins this race in South Goa will make no difference to the expectantly awaiting AAM AADMI for deliverance. All that we, at Goa Su-Raj shall do is to watch with keen interest the rival packs of hyenas fighting each other to destroy themselves, sending GOA to its doom in the bargain , until Goans at large have had ENOUGH. Yours (not so) faithfully, Sd/- Floriano Lobo goasuraj --------------------------------------- Feel strongly about changing the World? Step 1: Change yrself. Step 2: Come Out. Step 3: Sout for others who want to. Step 4: Join ' em. Floriano Lobo - Alto Pirazona - Moira - Bardez- Goa- 403 507 email: floriano @sancharnet.in Ph: (0832) 2470223 - (M) 9890470896
