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**** Annual Goanetters Meet ****
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Annual Goanetters Meet - January 3, 2012 - 12:30 - 2pm
Tourist Hostel, near the Old Secretariat, Panaji (Panjim)
Planning to attend? Send an email to [email protected] with contact details
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Musings from the hill top
Sajla Chawla
In the famous ancient land of Bindustan, lay a pristine little place
called Shenoa. It was a big village and for the sake of governance, was
divided into 40 roads. Each road had its own tribal chief and all the
forty tribal chiefs were under the rulership of their tribal king, a
balding, fat nosed, serious looking man. The land, terrain, valleys,
hills, rivers were all resplendent. This attracted many travelers to
Shenoa. Slowly, some of the travelers started buying large parts of
Shenoa and the 40 tribal chiefs were so enthralled by the sound of 30
jingling pieces of silver, that they did not just sell the land but also
started the sale of Marijuana and Hashish! They also made a fantastic
Land Development Plan to loot Shenoa, and forced it upon the poor
protesting people.
People led a laid back life in this land of abundance, having Feni in
the afternoons and maudlin music in the evenings, this wonderfully
relaxed, easy going, peaceful lot. Most of them worked hard, but many of
them spent useful time discussing purity of religion, clan and race.
Since many had never ventured out of Shenoa, they loved to talk about
the supremacy of Shenoa and wanted a special status for it in the
kingdom of Bindustan.
Historians now believe that the demand for special status was a
consequence of the way the 40 Chieftains, chaotically, governed Shenoa.
In fact, along with the tribal king, many of the tribal chiefs were so
embroiled in mining diamonds, from under people’s fields and villages
that Mother Earth cried and cursed in anguish. Somehow, the 40 chiefs
kept successfully dodging the curses and kept flourishing. Instead, the
curses fell on the hapless villagers, some of whom were part of an
exodus to distant Middle East. What confusion and anarchy!
For their livelihood, many villagers depended on boarding and lodging of
travelers, who flocked to see beautiful Shenoa. These travelers were a
mixed lot. Some of them genuinely valued Shenoa and some just came to
have some cheap fun and violated the beauty and peace of Shenoa.
Eventually, villagers of Shenoa, started a campaign of hate and
xenophobia against the travelers, little realizing that one cannot
measure everyone with the same yard stick, especially when one’s daily
bread is at stake!
On V Street, these great entrepreneurs made many products and went and
sold it all over Bindustan. Yet, some of them claimed to hate the very
people of Bindustan and some of them sought to align themselves with the
colonial power which had ruled and exploited them, ages ago. Many such
people, instead of integrating and finding solutions to their growing
problems, spent their time in criticizing everything and fighting
amongst themselves.
And all this while the serious looking tribal chief himself was at risk
of being buried in the mines that he was digging! After five years, in
Spring came the time of reckoning and the choosing of the new tribal
chiefs and king. But old habits die hard and only the second coming
could save the legendary land of Shenoa from the clutches of such
vicious vampire scourges!
http://74.127.61.178/herald/Details.aspx?id=2854&boxid=5953531&uid=&dat=12%2f30%2f2011
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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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