24 Jun 2017  |   06:40am IST

Is this the same Goa where I was born?

Joel Morais

I was born in a green scenic village of Cuncolim. My house is surrounded by fields from all sides and the beauty of these fields cannot be described in words when they were cultivated during my teens. As a child, I sailed my paper boats in one of those fields known as “Ogod” for all of us. I jumped there during the Sao Joao festival, watched  the fish in the clean flowing water while coming back home from school, made fun of the people washing clothes out there and disturbed the people fishing out there by asking them silly questions on fishing. Those were the days and sadly my children will never ever see them. 

They killed my “Ogod” in the name of development and I turned out to be a mere spectator. Sweet memories of “Ogod” will always remain in my heart but sadly my “Ogod” been miserably killed. This is how we paid for the fields which once gave our grain to live.

Several times before going to bed, the rape on a 6-year-old girl within the school premises at Vasco few years ago comes in my mind. I question my own self, how and why it happened? Who did it and why no serious attempts were made to catch the culprit? The prime responsibility of any elected government is the safety and the security of its people and in this particular case not just the government but we all failed to give justice to one of our little, sweet, innocent girls and she will never ever forgive us.

There was a video gone viral in social media wherein a Sarpanch slaps a woman couple of times and that too in the Panchayat Office in presence of others. The woman was abusive in the video but does that give a right for the sarpanch to slap her? Sad that such ugly scenes are been witnessed in Goa.

Now comes a woman from somewhere who has got no clue about Goa’s open minded culture and says “People who eat beef should be hanged in public”. What exactly does this woman intend to prove? At what angle the world will look at us when they hear such ugly statements and that too coming from Goa, a place known for sun, sea, sand, football not forgetting fun loving people. Sorry to say that not beef eating people but such people who try to disrupt the peace of the peaceful people should be hanged in public because I don’t see any different between them and the terrorists.

And on the same day, we hear about another ugly act where tourists are assaulted by locals at Merces with a koita etc. What was the cause of the fight? Who started the fight? Is it a part of Goemkarponn to use a koita  against fellow humans even the tourists may have been the cause of the fight? On daily basis Goa is losing her peaceful charm. The Sea has gone rough, the sun turned out to be very hot, the sand been polluted, Feni getting disappeared and the GFA is all out to kill Goa's football.

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