Heart to Heart By Ethel Da Costa CM Sir, can you liberate yourself from delusion?
I've been traveling like a nomad on the loose.wanting fresh air to run through my hair, from mountains to the cities, driving miles of humanity spread across acres of land, some dry, some desolate, some bursting with population and their vagaries..traffic, exhaust, cows chewing on plastic at roadside garbage dumps, drones in office spaces, beating recession, inflation, falling sensex and so many aspirations as we struggle to find balance in a country now experiencing anger, fear, insecurity and loads of questions. I packed my travel bag and set across the borders, wanting to quiet down the stresses of progress at the price of human lives..but CM Sir, your Goa and mine is truly on fire..the flames of anger now stoking high and loud. It seems to me that you've now lost control and credit trying to keep the cockroaches hidden under the carpet. Happens, when you keep sweeping them under, thinking no ones looking, shutting the genuine concerns of people - your voters who have been supporting you initially and are now very angry - with a brute force of power. Lathi charge at innocent anti-mining protestors at Ambauli, pulling people out of their homes and beating them up, while the corruption of land deals, builders lobbies, River Princess, garbage sites and I can't count the scams anymore, continue to haunt our daily, normal lives, abetted by your people in the Secretariat. Have you seen the sorry state of your own city? Margao? And does it strike you that we have more `migrant' than local sharing resident spaces in what was once a lovely town to settle down in? I'm not a regionalist, but CM Sir, even simple road directions from roadside passersby -- if you're lost meandering looking for a sample of peace in your own hometown -- can be had from migrant labourers proudly owning ownership of our land. What happened to my local Goenkars? Hopefully, you know better than me. I no longer recognize Margao. I no longer recognize those places dotted with intimate memories of family outings doing ice-creams at Penguin, dosas at Kamat, biryanis at Longuinous.or the side lanes for burgers during college, or shopping for Christmas at Old Market..I feel like a stranger in my own hometown CM Sir. Because, while I struggle to make a decent ration card and voting card for myself, your `migrant' brethren blessed with the graces of our political grasshoppers flaunt their right to my space so boldly.. Is this the Goa you are bequeathing to the younger generation still learning Goa's history in their schools? Are these the values you are passing down, that lip service will take our State and country to heaven? Tell me CM Sir, are you one of those who cannot differentiate between good people and psychopaths crowding your living spaces, day in and night out, using your good offices for a good, fast buck? Having worked with you professionally, I know a great good exists within your heart. It is that good I seek to appeal, for the greater good of Goa. As leaders, we understand the pressures of running portfolios, seats of power and people management. But a steadfast man/woman is he/she who knows when to draw the line and how. Even if you have to firmly put down a foot, make that two, when things have to be done right. Even in great pressure. Even in greater opposition. Because you are accountable to a higher conscious, your own conscious, the seat the people have put you on and the enormous weight of responsibility absolute power bequests those assigned with it. These are the expectations that have gone awry today. And yes, you are to be blamed a great deal for letting your cronies have the better end of the pie, while the people of this State have been left with the crumbs. Because, finally, you and I know well that the buck stops with the man/woman on the hot seat. Works in life, works in work. Simple. As I write this, I will watch with amusement as another charade of Liberation is played in my backyard. Speeches, medals, and high tea. I avoid all these like the plague. Not because I disrespect the protocol of niceties that go with these deliberations, but because I have lost patience, like the lakh of Goans who now believe that the only way to make their voices felt is to now show it in strength. The River Princess. The mining monsters eating away into our health and environment. The police versus people lobby. The builders lobby who have ruined whatever little patches of green to exfoliate our lungs off the dust settling into our homes and food. Why can't you simply get your act together, boss? You must understand that the people of Goa mean well. But the `grasshoppers' now turned voracious locusts have been eating for too long into our pride as the country's most peaceful, sucegad State with their antics that shame even teenagers high on testosterone. We want to tell you CM Sir, that the worms in your basket are beginning to make the State's population look like deers caught in the glare. Read that simply as `stop making us look like fools.' I know for sure I'm staying indoors this Christmas.leave alone celebrating Liberation from the Portuguese, because I simply have no faith in the State's ability to keep our home, neighbourhood, and cityscapes safe off fear. CM Sir, you really should liberate yourself from the delusion that all's well in God's paradise - Goa. No apologies for this bluntness. Some of us are like this only. (ENDS) The Ethel Da Costa weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=492 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the December 21, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
