Megha Bahuguna and Isha Mantry. Two very young girls in the early stages of woman-hood. All they came to Goa was to have a good time. Be a part of a massive electronic music festival, an important element in their buffet of not just entertainment, but life. They loved the music which set them free, and let them be, in the company of their peers, as a leitmotif of what life meant to them.
But even paradise isn’t without thorns. Megha’s death due to a suspected overdose of drugs at the Sunburn festival two years ago, brought the spotlight on the cascading allegations of music festivals being just a big drug party with a lot of sound. It’s funny how these kind of chickens come home to roost. And it’s not surprising that they do. From Lennon, to Bon Jovi to Freddie Mercury, to Mick Jagger to Def Leppard and AC/ DC to Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston and all their legion of fans, a part of that music journey was about hope fuelled with dope.
This isn’t really about Goa and what it is doing to those here. The proximity and synonymity of music with alcohol and drugs and all that goes with it is a part of that heady mix which knows no national or state boundaries. The ethics, the morality and the propriety of it all is not today’s debate. It’s a sixty year old debate. Narrowing it down to the confines of a Sunburn or a Supersonic music festival, misses the point. While there has not been a shred of tangible evidence that drugs have been sold or consumed on any of the venues, the near matrimony between live music and its age old companions is a given. Perhaps these two girls Megha and now Isha who passed away a night ago, were two more victims of this nexus, perhaps they were not, but if a course correction- if that’s the view of those who want to course correct, then stopping or banning two festivals in Goa won’t do that.
Goa and those who blame EDM music festivals for this are missing the point squarely. The tipping point, for the Meghas and Ishas, come and go on a daily basis on clubs, beach side shacks, nightclubs and other venues, in alleys and by-lanes of Anjuna, Vagator, Baga, Morjim and Palolem. This is where the same combination works. And someone just tips over and dies. It’s just that they don’t come with the massive razzmatazz of international DJ’s, heavy headline acts and a marketing blitz running into hundreds of crores. But the DNA of live concert music and its heady but unhealthy companions are the same. These are realities and if a high moral ground needs to be taken, then it cannot be within the confined spaces of these two music festivals.
However this comes with a very big caveat. The festival organisers and the government must carry out a relentless pursuit of discouraging and preventing the use of substances in these venues. But these things are not always foolproof and the allegation against these festival organisers is that they may not observe a zero tolerance to drugs policy in letter and spirit with absolute honesty. It’s a charge that have to live with as Meghas and Ishas continue to die, even if these two women were completely responsible for their own actions
Also electronic music festivals are not flawless in all aspects and their staging should be looked at. Beside the debate on their timing bang in the middle of tourist season- which cuts both ways- there is great deal of resentment among many who live in the vicinity of the venues, especially the elderly who can’t handle the sound volumes. It is imperative that the government ensures that the need to have these festivals cannot be greater than the sum of all the baggage and the problems that come with the staging of these festivals. The government needs to designate an area for events of this nature away from the main towns and villages in a completely residential free area. There is a lot of unused land in the industrial estates and other areas which are not near neighbourhoods or villages. They need not be on the coast but can be in the hinterland. Therefore the EDM’s can happen in a zone of their own without clashing with the ordinary day to day lives of tourists and other locals.
RIP Isha. You will very sadly go down as a footnote which to many will affirm the Molotov cocktail that music festivals and its assorted heady mixes are. Even if you were just another music loving bubbly woman with dreams and designs, here to have a good time, singing Freddie Mercury’s immortal number “Don’t stop me now”.
