To Goanet - I got this piece of tripe written by Bharati Heble in my mailbox as part of the periodic dump Sandeep Heble takes on the WeGoans list. Presumably he has also posted it to Goanet. Here is my brief response:
As CCP Councillor, Bharati Heble should have been first attending to the large puddle of raw sewage in front of Dr. Dhume's home in St. Inez, right in her front yard. But turning Goa into a slum is something our elected officials have gotten good at, so I can understand why Ms Heble would ignore the sewage and focus on sartorial issues instead. I agree with one and only one part of her screed: the ban on foreigners is ridiculous and ought to be reversed. The rest of Heble's dribble is smelly hogwash just like the raw sewage puddle currently sparkling in St. Inez. A dress code at temples would be a GOOD thing, and if true, I applaud the temple committees for the proposal. It is one of the few things the useless temple committees have done right in the past decades. Goa's Hindus temples are the last remaining spaces of sanity and peace (Kerala, too). Go to the temples across India and you will see the degradation. The only Goan temples trending towards those in the rest of India are the popular touristed ones, those allowing tourist buses to bring in uncultured Indian hordes. Indians have no public manners, therefore a dress code would provide a minimal filter. I don't want people coming to our temples sporting "I-Luv-Goa" T-shirts and shorts, treating it as a detour to their beach picnic, creating a racket on the premises (after all, to the Indian there is no distinction between a public space and his private room), and being the general nuisance they are trained to be since childhood. Ms Heble should know that the seeds of the Indians' lack of manners are sown in childhood when parents don't offer even minimal guidance on matters of public decorum. This, in Ms Heble's view, would be playing the cultural police. There should be basic stipulations on the character of dress that is expected and permitted. If implemented intelligently, this will help weed out the casual drive-by Indian visitor who, as I said earlier, only treats this as a pee-break en route to his beach picnic. Does Bharati Heble also object to the requirement that visitors remove their footwear at the temple door? Why not? Finally, about the "Atithi devo bhavah" cant: how many ghatis loitering and defecating in St Inez's open spaces has Bharati Heble opened her bathroom to? Regards, r
