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Protect Goa's natural beauty
Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve
Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php
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I joined a seventy five year old over dosa at the town temple's dinette,
responding to the usual personal query with a remake - "I am from
Mauritius," I said. Big mistake therein, for I was to discover it 'belonged
to India !' as he very pointedly reminded me.
And so it went on, over lassi and tea: Nepal and Ceylon, Burma and Afghanistan
were also in the bag, when I hastily changed topic. Just imagine, I could have
reminded him that Oman and Yemen were lorded over by Dufferin from his throne
in Bombay, as was Malacca by Lord Mayo from his hot seat in Madras. I am
glad I did not allude to our 'friendly' Mongol/Moguls in not so far away Uzbek
land. Uday B., would you settle for governor !
We live in a world where the Czechs shoved out the blustering Slovaks, the
lovable Tunku Abdul Rehman waved a recalcitrant Lee Kuan a Singaporian goodbye
out of Malaya, and two Spanish regions have split, but keep the flag to keep EU
charity flowing.
Our Nobel Peace wannabees glory in rampages over the subjects of colonial
war-trophy territories, heedless of 3% poll numbers, even as fortunes are
expanded on military spending that knows no bounds.
There is a price to pay that goes beyond the monetory: we pawn our souls as
we egg on the jingo, then wake up to discover the monster can devour it's own
tail. The Russian's had little qualms over the rape of little states in the
Kavkas: Georgia, Chechnya, Ingushetya. The saviour of the motherland, Pooteen,
now sees 'terrorists' in every magnate and common citizen who questions his
sordid mafia stranglehold on the country.
Make no bones about it, the attitude prevails in the third world: do not
question our morals is the implication, for they were also in abeyance when we
employed the third degree on little folk across our borders. eric.
