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The Rape of Goa - A photo documentary
by
Rajan P. Parrikar
Venue: Menezes Braganza Art Gallery, Panjim, May 21-24, 2008
http://www.parrikar.org/misc/doc-notice.pdf
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*Depending on our genders (and consequent biases), we will take sides in
this debate, and see what we choose to see. ("What you see, depends on
where you stand," as someone put it aptly.)
jane gillian rodrigues* janerodrigues at rediffmail.com
<mailto:goanet%40lists.goanet.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BGoanet%5D%20Predators%20in%20Paradise%3F%3F%3F&In-Reply-To=%3C20080522101714.11621.qmail%40f5mail-237-208.rediffmail.com%3E>
wrote on May 22, 2008:
> Dear Goankars,
> OK, I do feel very sad for the lovely, lonely Sarah. I also know why
she fell for Farouk,
> because he gave her something that the UK men could not give her,
namely,
> "passionate sex and attention, but also the chance of a new life."
No point in blaming men or women here, or different geographies. The
price of women's empowerment (not suggesting this wasn't needed) is that
women and men both need each other less and less. Both sides are
navigating role-reversals, and trying to unlearn roles internalised over
millennia probably, in a very short span of three to four decades. This
is causing heartburn on both sides, without doubt.
"Passionate sex and attention" is what the media has got us to expect.
But it seldom comes out of a long relationship, let alone a marriage.
One could have the illusion of it from a short holiday "romance",
however make-believe and 'matlaabi' (selfishness-based) it is.
About the "chance of a new life", well, as that saying goes, there's no
such thing as a free meal. Sometimes the "new life" is illusory too, and
could come at a very high price... as this case illustrates.
> Sarah, a highly educated, IT professional befriends an unknown man while
> on holiday in a foreign country, who was "very friendly, nice guy,
who spoke good
> English", especially after she has already read about the rape and
murder of a
> fellow citizen of UK, Miss Scarlet in Goa via the media.(1st meeting)
> WOW!!!!
> She actually believes that her "leaflets on the planes flying to holiday
> destinations like Goa, warning women to beware", will actually stop
foreign
> women from being conned, when she, herself, did not stop to think
about Scarlet.
> (2nd meeting) again with the same unknown man for drinks.
> Sarah has one smart friend who says "NO" to kissing an unknown man.
> 'His friend was trying to kiss my friend too, but she would have none
> of it - she was married, and told him so.'
> Please note - Her friend warns Sarah, but she does not listen.
> She is a love-struck teenager -
> 'My friend told me I was being silly, but I was caught up in the
romance of it all.
Even if the Goan male is a sex fiend, out to con the hapless and largely
innocent Scarletts and Sarahs (as the media coverage suggests), there's
some reading-between-the-lines that emerges in cases like these.
People will believe what they want to believe. As our human race gets
increasingly selfish, the search for "love" gets only more heightened.
Relationships between locals and tourists here seem to be more of the
local male-foreign woman kind of equations. Some have resulted in
unlikely long-term equations, cutting across divides of race, class,
education-levels, language, continent and what not.
Of course, this is nothing new. Other tourist-receiving societies have
also reported similar tends, whether it's the Gambia or Thailand.
Travelling males have been going out in search for sex perhaps for
centuries, or decades. Now, women too believe they could find "love" in
distant lands and at the right 'price'. Of course, the emotional
involvement across the genders would differ vastly ... Wonder how a
story told from the Goa perspective would read, as compared to the Daily
Mail's. FN
