When the bouquets and posies fade .....
The 'slog overs' test the Captain's worth to the TEAM effort
By Miguel Braganza
Friday is the "Mandd" day in Mapusa, the day of its weekly bazzar. During my
years in Government service, I was often reminded of the essence of the
story by Daniel Defoe: After the adventures Robinson Crusoe, no one got his
work done by Friday! I tried my best . with help from my superiors,
colleagues and subordinates . to serve the people of Goa to the best of my
ability. If I did not succeed, it was not for want of trying, as in the case
of the dysfunctional "Goa Fruit and Flower Nurseries[Regulation] Act, 1995"
and Rules there under, which I followed up for a decade after voluntary
retirement. It is not something that can be said of the current Goa
Government, or the elected Opposition party, which does its damnest to serve
its own interests and a few favourites for various reasons and seasons. It
is all "party" time.
The "Aam Aurat" in Mapusa Market was very apologetic went I spoke to her
last Friday, or 'Mandd' day. The non seasonal rains accompanied by thunder,
lightning and high velocity winds, on February 15 and March 14
[incidentally, the days on which GBA held its tempestous monthly meetings in
Panaji] had reduced the mango crop. She knew nothing of economics or of the
standard graphs of "Production Frontiers" or the laws of "Demand and Supply"
and their impact on pricing. She , however, knew one thing: the price of
mangoes had gone up because there were less mangoes and more tourists in the
market. She told me a secret. "Baba he aambe sovay, only two Euros!" The
mangoes are definitely cheap at that price for a foreign tourist. The
Americans can still buy the mangoes at US$3.0 each. The poor Indians have to
shell out almost a day's wages for a daily waged clerk: Rs.120/- per mango.
As in the case of the Real Estate lobby, it is not her problem if the
average Goan is too poor to buy her wares!
In the discourse and debate on the almost gone "Goan Identity", the usual
points of reference used to be whether one was a native Goan [born in Goa]
or a person of Goan parentage born anywhere where the Goans have reached in
search of greener pastures for employment and stayed back irrespective of
whether they were greener or not. The debate has now shifted to discussing
whether socialite Bina Ramani who has bought hot real estate in Goa, where
she occasionally comes on a holiday is a "Goan" or an "anti-Goan". [Please
read my favourite columnist, Mario Cabral e Sa at page A8 of GT dated 08
April, 2008, and re-visit NDTV's "We, the People" of 16 march, 2008 shot at
Baga-Calangute]. The new twist to that is whether a Bina Lamani, resident of
Colva for the last 20 years is also a Goan and whether her Margao-born
children are "more Goan" than the Canada resident, London-born son of
Fernandes from Goa and a Nair from Kerala, both of whom had earlier migrated
to Nairobi in British East Africa from Bandra! My classmate, Soter de Souza,
would like to sort out some of these issues of "Goan-ness" in all its
goodness.
Fellow member of the GBA Core Group and former Chairman of the now highly
controversial MPT, Mr. Aravind Bhatikar, has written extensively on the Task
Force on the Regional Plan 2021 [GT 09 April, 2008] and I would like to echo
his thoughts, specially on the capacity building and empowerment of the Ward
Development Committees [notified by the Goa Government as far back as
September, 2007, but orphaned at birth] for the preparation of the Village
Development Plan as the first step to the Regional Plan 2021 that the Task
Force is now mandated to do after it found itself incapable of drafting
"guidelines" acceptable to the vested interests in this party for the kurta
clad functionaries. That Arvind Bhatikar, not a known detractor of the
current Chief Minister, found it fit to call the Task Force "an orphan
fending for itself" is a telling commentary in itself!
The Task Force, in spite of two "Nodal Officers" [including an efficient GPS
cadre administrator] and the Secretary [TCP] as its Convenor besides being
headed by the CM himself, has been unable to issue the "Minutes" of its
meetings rendering the hours spent on deliberations and the "sitting fees"
paid to the members a colossal waste. The "sitting fees" will be a good
indicator of how many meetings each of the non-official members have
attended. The GBA has requested its Convenor, and sole officially notified
representative in the Task Force, to obtain a copy of the minutes for
discussions in the GBA meeting before the "Interim Report" of the Task Force
is released on the 15th day of some month in some year, hopefully during the
term of the current Government. It was originally scheduled for 15 December,
2007 and now stands at 15 March, 2008. For Goa, it is "Atit Deva Bhava". The
Past is like God! Atiti Deva Bhava is for Renuka and others during their
foreign junkets. Right now three of Goa's MLAs have gone "Down Under" to see
the kangaroos and eat Kiwi fruit. It is cooler in the Southern Hemisphere.
One thing is as clear as the water in a mountain stream before the advent of
open cast iron ore and manganese mining in Colomb village of Sanguem taluka:
the present Government of Goa is not of the "Aam Admi" or the "Common Man"!
Had the Government of Goa truly represented the aspirations of the common
man, the GBA would have been wound up, the GMAS, SVM, MBA, CCAC, ABA, AAAG
and other Civil Society Organisations [CSOs] would have never been formed.
If the "Aam Admi" increasingly finds the need to form local groups to fight
the Goa Government policies, it is for the CM to introspect an to act as per
his conscience, if any. It is not for him to lecture the Goans on
"development" .or to use his cronies and new found supporters as village
chaplains to preach his views. Otherwise, he might as well set up his own
offshore Casino in the inland Mandovi river, instead of gambling Goa away
with his 39 colleagues in a state-owned and operated property at Penha de
France, on the banks of the river Mandovi! (ENDS)
The Miguel Braganza weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=482
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The above article appeared in the April 12, 2008 edition of the Gomantak
Times, Goa
