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2008 International Goan Convention
Toronto, Canada
Early Bird Discount Registration closes March 31, 2008
http://www.2008goanconvention.com/regform_print.html
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http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/50559/goan-in-the-wind.html
Goan with the Wind
By RAJDEEP SARDESAI
In the early 1990s, Air India printed a calendar showcasing people
from different states in their traditional costumes. The Goa portrait
had a couple at a church wedding in bridal finery: the lady in a
flowing gown, her partner in a jacket and tie. The publication sparked
off protests within the Goan community, who accused the national
carrier of portraying a flawed image of the state.
In a state where over sixty per cent is Hindu, the calendar was seen
to reinforce the stereotype of Goa as a "westernised" Portuguese
enclave. Ironically, the protests were led, among others, by the
redoubtable architect Charles Correa, a Goan Catholic proud of his
Saraswat Brahmin heritage, someone who was perfectly comfortable in
his kurta pajama and Kolhapuri chappals. The protestors were
successful enough to force a change in the calendar.
When the Air India Maharajah gets it wrong, what chance does the
average Indian have of getting Goa right?
For decades now, Goa has been the victim of a rather perverted
caricature: the stereotypical image of the state has been of a lazy,
fun-loving coastal community with a weak moral core. Bollywood, often
the trailblazer in setting cultural trends, did Goa no favours: the
majority of Hindi cinema showed the Goan as the drunk Anthony
Gonsalves-like character, a woman on one arm, a whisky bottle bottle
in his pocket. Even the otherwise well made Dil Chahta Hai created the
idea of Goa as the ultimate fantasy of the young Indian: girls were
easy, sexual freedom guaranteed with the puritanical streak of the
rest of the country absent here.
Rewind to the original "Goan" film, Bobby in the 1970s: find me a Goan
fisherman's daughter who dresses in skimpy bikinis and shorts like
Dimple Kapadia and I will buy you a villa next to Vijay Mallya's
seaside bungalow in Candolim.
Unfortunately, it hasn't been easy to shake off the "live the good
times" image of Goa, especially when the mainstream media has lapped
it up so easily. If a few years ago, it was fish, feni and football
that was considered to be the limit of Goa's vision, its now sex, sin
and sand, courtesy the Scarlett Keeling controversy. For an
increasingly tabloidish media, the Scarlett controversy is manna from
heaven.
A teenage white woman drugged, drowned, possibly raped, perhaps
murdered, on a beach in Goa by mysterious shack owners: what more can
a carnivorous media ask for? Especially when there are enough close up
pictures of a semi-nude Scarlett with marks all over her body,
suggesting foul play and a possible cover up? That the area where the
incident took place is notorious for drug peddling, that Scarlett
herself appears to have had an active sex life, that the girl's truant
mother has a past history of crime, and is now embellishing her public
remarks with unsubstantiated allegations against Goa's top
politicians, that Goa's netas and local cops have a terrible record in
fighting crime, can the media really then be blamed for seeing this as
a sensational crime story which will catch restless eyeballs?
But Scarlett's story is not simply another whodunit, nor does it fit
in within the "fight for justice" framework that in the aftermath of
the Jessica Lal case seems to have become the new war cry for a
section of the media. Instead, the Scarlett saga lies at the heart of
a more abiding conflict between diverse cultural strands of Goa:
between licentiousness and piety, between new world normlessness and
old world certitudes.
There is the Goa of the beachcombers, of the hippies who discovered
Baga in the early 70s, of the rave parties, of paedophilia, of
decadent hedonism. But there is also the Goa of deep social
conservatism, of folk religiosity in its village temples and churches,
of simplicity of lifestyle within rural communities, of a premium on
education and of immense pride in its plural, multi-cultural heritage.
The Goa of a tiny strip of beach between Candolim and Anjuna is
constantly in the media gaze and makes front page headlines. The vast
majority of Goans who live outside this world are rarely documented
because their lives seem much too unexciting to be explored.
Historians and anthropologists have done much to unravel the "real'
Goa, but for the national media, it is so much easier to reduce an
entire people to a tourist brochure .
Indeed, Goa's tourism industry - earning the state approximately
10,000 crores in foreign exchange per annum -- has been at the heart
of the modern-day mythification of the state as some form of a sexual
paradise. It is estimated that around 25 lakh tourists come to Goa
each year, a vast majority of them local tourists, eager to explore
the "idea" of being in a "free" state, free from the restrictions of
middle class attitudes. Only a fifth of the tourists who visit the
state each year are foreigners, most of them looking for a cheap
holiday. The Caribbean is too expensive, the Costa del Sol not exotic
enough and Australia too far: so why not clamber onto a chartered
plane to a land of the "carnival"?
Unfortunately, the postcard image of Goa often has little connection
with the living reality of its people The result is a clash of
cultures that has partly shaped the debate over the Scarlett issue.
For many Goans, the foreign tourist is a needless intrusion into their
community life . Even now, the idea of any form of nudity on the
beaches offends Goans, at times even the sight of a half clad gent on
a bike troubles villagers. Which perhaps explains why very few Goans
seem to have any sympathy for Scarlett's mother, shocked as they are
by her decision to leave her teenage daughter behind and travel to
neighbouring Karnataka on her own. The Keelings' behaviour offends
Goan sensibilities, it reopens lingering fears of a traditional
society being overrun by the "outsider". That a young girl might have
been raped and murdered by locals doesn't seem to concern a majority
of Goans as much as it should.
And yet, the real threat to Goa's cultural identity does not lie in
the lifestyle of the tourist, confined as they are to a small stretch
of the state. In fact, in a state with limited employment
opportunities, Goa needs to attract more, not less tourists.
The critical threat to Goan society instead comes from within: from
the brazen sale of priceless real estate to those who have little
stake in the state's future . It isn't the influx of tourists which
should trouble Goans as much as the growing influence of the builders
and construction agents who appear determined to destroy the state's
environmental treasure in violation of all existing laws. While Goa's
politicians go into cataclysms over the Scarlett case, how many of
them have bothered to raise their voice against the virtual auction of
the state to land sharks? Is it any surprise that in a state which has
seen as many as 19 chief ministers in 21 years of statehood,
politicians have lost the moral authority to speak up on the issues of
governance that really matter to the average Goan?
Frankly, the challenge before Goa today is not the one which is being
posed by a Scarlett-afflicted media: a permissive drugs and drink
culture might make for good television, its not central to Goa's
impending identity crisis.
The real challenge for Goans is whether they can preserve the
uniqueness of their land by ensuring that it doesn't become another
concrete jungle. Environment may not make sensational headlines like a
murder can, but in the long run, preventing environmental degradation
can alone secure Goa's future.
Post-script: Let me also debunk another stereotype: the "desai" in my
surname often leads people to presume I am Gujarati. The fact is that
my father was a Goan, and I am proud to be one too.
