This is with reference to the informative article ‘Sympathies are with Minister Vijai Sardessai because the bad will tarnish the good in Goa’ by your guest writer Rae Stewart (Herald, 24 February).
While he appears to “sympathise” with Minister Vijai Sardesai’s blunt statement about the domestic tourists, he shifts the blame on the Goa Government and Goans, as a whole, for the uncivilised and unruly behaviour of the domestic tourists.
First of all, we must realise that the “wrong image of Goan women; our eating and drinking cultural ethos; the women-men dancing at functions, specially of Catholics; our easy-way-of life; our friendly and non-violent nature”, among other aspects of Goans and Goa, was created a long, long time ago, by Bollywood movies, over which we neither had a say nor control! In these, movie after movie, Goan women were depicted as of “easy morals” and the men as drunken buffoons.
After the liberation of Goa, this totally belittling idea of Goans and Goa, went on escalating, with total disdain for Goans and Goa, that today, it is the belief among all Indians, the rich, the poor of every religious affiliation, that in Goa one can do whatever one wants to do and which they will not dare attempt in their own States. Indian men, for example believed that, because Goan women, wore knee-length dresses and skirts, were an “easy catch,” but today we see in Goa, thousands of young Indian girls, attired in shortest of shorts, roaming all over Goa on two-wheelers! Will those “shorts” go unchallenged and/or unattempted molestation/rape, in their own States?!
The accompanying photo in the said article, says it all. This is, of course, not something new for us Goans, the tourists, both foreign and domestic. The obvious reasons for this ugly behaviour of the domestic tourists, is their poor ethical, cultural and educational formation. It is not the duty of any Government, to tell anyone, including the tourists not to urinate from the window of a bus, in broad daylight or at night; not to break beer-bottles on the beach; not to use our gardens and parks to cook their food etc. etc
It is these ugly, unstoppable doings of and by the domestic tourists that has all Goans feeling disgusted, outraged, revolted and helpless. Minister Vijai Sardesai spoke for all of us, when he referred to the domestic tourists as the” scum of the earth”, for which, as a Goan, I thank him, no matter how “undiplomatic” his statement (outburst) was.
