Another perspective

The view from the other side

Some years ago when a friend had gone to Pattaya in Thailand he admitted that his ears burned with the suggestions “to have a good time” made to him from a network of people ranging from a waiter, a taxi driver, the hotel receptionist, to some random guy on the beach. There was just no getting away from the lurid suggestions on offer for a price.

But sad to say, I hear that tourists coming to Goa too are attacked by touts selling sleaze. From seemingly innocuous suggestions to be escorted by a girl to a dance bar where you buy the said girl a drink – say a shot of tequila for Rs 150 – to an oily chap sidling up and asking “would you like a foreigner for the night?” A group from Chennai including a photojournalist are now convinced that Goa is a sex destination. So much for the tourism minister issuing instructions down the line to remove bikini babes from all brochures/posters selling Goa as a tourism destination so that tourists will think it is a family destination.

I’m told that the group was even waylaid on the beach, in their guest house, even a shack where they were having a leisurely beer by someone offering free entry coupons to some nightspots. For those who took the bait, they got shaken down for every rupee they had. Apparently, for those who like arm candy while entering these nightspots, the deal is very clear. One song, one shot and the girl is by your side. You want her company for another song, it will cost you another shot of tequila/whisky/ brandy/ whatever is your poison. The trick is also that while you get steadily drunk, the girl only fakes it – as in every “shot” is actually a peg of soft drink or even water – so that she is fresh to ‘entertain’ the next customer and the routine is repeated. So, do the math on how much she will earn after circulating for several hours. And by the time the shutters come down, everyone involved in the scam has made a neat pile! Mr Tourism Minister, are you reading this?

Maybe it’s also time to acknowledge that the moral fibre of Goa has not only been destroyed by tourism but also that some of the stake-holders in the tourism pie that are responsible for headlines such as “Goa, the rape capital of India” are amidst us.


Say No to Drugs

Our home minister recently declared – after a young girl from Delhi ODed on a cocktail of drugs – that Goa has no drug culture. This ostrich-like attitude by our montris for several decades is what has led to Goa getting a bad name. Again hear it from the other side. The owner of a prominent restaurant serving French and Italian cuisine in Pondicherry that draws tourists like a magnet, declared – “Goa has a drug background, Pondicherry has a spiritual background.” Is Mr Ravi Naik listening? Or for that matter, the tourism minister?


Sartorial Splendour

This reminds me of our Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik who tied himself in knots trying to retract his infamous statement that the rape of a woman “who moves with strangers for days together even beyond midnight” should be “treated differently.” Since that outbreak of foot in the mouth disease, he’s been busy with his job as the AICC’s in-charge of Tamil Nadu. After his recent visit to review the progress of party elections in that state, he was again shooting off his mouth. Frankly, with the contradictory statements coming out from different leaders about the existing alliance, his input that the ties between the DMK and Congress was strong just added to the babel. But since he seems to favour quotable quotes, here’s a gem: “In Tamil Nadu, unless a politician wears a ‘lungi’, he does not get votes. If he (politician) wears a shirt and pants there...he loses.” Even Chidambaram wears a white lungi(btw, they call it ‘veshti’ in TN). Somebody tell him that Chidambaram is not the toast of UPA-2 because of his sartorial sense but because of the sensibility and good common sense he brings to his job. Or maybe Naik was thinking of Chidambaram’s predecessor Shivraj Patil who found time to change his attire repeatedly and did not have a single hair out of place in his bouffant (to look natty for the TV cameras) while terrorists were having a field day planting serial bombs in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur ….

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