Sun, sand and sex Revati Laul Special Correspondent Tuesday, April,1 2008 (New Delhi) If there was another way to sell Goa, please tell me about it!...Well, if all of Goa, save this stretch of beach IS like the rest of the country...why bother selling it to tourists?...It's almost as mesmerising to stop and stare a[t] the men and women that come to sun bathe, as it is to look at the water turn gold in the sun. Take that away and you could be on Colaba, or Marina beach or a stretch of sea in Chennai or most any other beach in the country. Yes, they all have their own ways of enticing you. But none of them allow you to live your free-est, most uninhibited self. Not the way Goa lets you be.... If we're talking about offending local sensibilities, let's be clear. Who exactly are we talking of? The locals?...Are we trying to say the idea of people skinny dipping, without their actual physical presence on mainland Goa...just the very idea of them is deeply offensive? Or that this is new? Well...well...well..... this prattle about culture and spoiling...there must have been times...many decades ago... when locals say they could lie on the beach and not see a soul for miles....We desis only know how to crowd, overpopulate and ruin our tourist spots over and over. Hasn't it already happened a few decades ago to all our hill stations? ... Then on the other hand, do we expect Goa to be this isolated bubble...completely unaffected by the middle class morality of the rest of the country? Or devoid of land sharks? ...the papers were stuffed with all the possible scenarios on why Goa has gone wrong and where and how...and I was thinking to myself...really? Well, everyone I've spoken to in Delhi and Mumbai is still going there...they're all 'habitual offenders' then...all of them. And frankly I was having such a good time I was forced to think...well how could it have been better? ... Part of this sounded to me like the proverbial clash of civilizations argument. East is East and West is West...Skinny too deep and you shall know the rest...But it didn't sound like something new. Or something that the rest of the country isn't already dealing with on every street corner. Hey...Goans, xenophobes! Lend me your ears...this is what it is then...if you want Goa to seem like the rest of the country...then it IS!!!...Goa still captivates...still frees the mind...is happily the preserve...possibly the last stand of the hippie and Vijay Mallya all at once.... For those who want completely deserted beach, minus the 'riff-raff'...well there is always Lakshadweep....try getting yourself onto Bangaram Island. That's for firings only!!! ...The rest, Kavaratti, Kalpeni, Minicoy and others (I've been to these and they are breathtakingly beautiful blue coral islands) are, open to everyone else...proud non firings that is. Is this how we want Goa to be? Yes, I can hear that resounding NO! Well, then; there's also a resounding NO to the flip side...take the firings out of Goa.... So how do we protect and preserve the best of Goa, and make it safe for women? Well, the same way we try and fail and still try in the rest of the country I guess!!!... But please lets not let this nosedive into some pretentious soul searching looking for answers to questions we shouldn't be asking...is Goa like the rest of the country or not? Yes it is...it's where the rest of the country can escape to once in a while... http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showcolumns.aspx?id=COLEN20080045622 _________________________________________________________________ Fashion Channel : Want to know what’s the latest in the fashion world ? You have it all here on MSN Fashion. http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/
