Kishore Amati
Barely a few days ago, in the main edition
of Herald, we wrote about the rampant abuse of drugs especially along the
Northern beach belt of Goa. Not that we needed a fresh proof, but the recent
deaths of two individuals at a trance party in Anjuna late Saturday night,
widely suspected to be because of drug overdose, strengthens our claim. For
good or for bad is debatable, but electronic dance music festivals in Goa for
long have earned synonymy with drug abuse. And while the cops and the festival
organisers continue to play the blame game, the number of fatalities,
unfortunately, continue to be on the rise.
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Neeraj Patel (name changed on request for
anonymity) a PR professional and blogger from Mumbai had flown down with his
friends especially to attend Freedom Blast – a psy trance festival that was
supposed to take place at Club Nyex in Anjuna over the long weekend. Patel
says, “The party began at a different venue in Vagator on Friday and Saturday,
amidst a few hiccups that resulted in the party shutting a few times. Rumours
suggest that one person died at the festival. As a result, the event stood
cancelled on Sunday and on Monday, the action had shifted to Club Nyex.”
Satellite Beachside – a techno festival had
been planned to happen from August 11 to 14, 2017 at Waters Beach Lounge &
Grill, Anjuna. After the first two successful days, Sunday saw the party shift
to Showbar in Sinquerim whereas on Monday, the event shifted further North to
Aquatica in Ashvem. When tried to contact Nikhil Chinapa, one of the organisers
of Satellite Beachside for his take on the matter, our calls and texts were
rewarded with radio silence. When asked Mackenzie Eudes Pereira, a DJ who has
been a part of VH1 Supersonic in the past and a prominent face in the nightlife
circuit of Goa, for his comments, he said, “A druggy will do drugs whether
there is a music festival or not. SIMPLE! I’m often asked whether the festival
organisers are doing their part to control drug abuse at the venues. Of course,
they are. Every person is frisked at the entry point. But, what if the person
has consumed drugs before entering the venue? Where did he get these drugs
from? Who has been selling drugs? Why aren’t these drugs dealers arrested yet? It’s
really sad to hear what happened the other day. Such incidents don’t only ruin
the festival atmosphere but also ruin the reputation called Goa!”
The recent incident is bad news for Goa for
reasons more than one. Apart from the fact that two human lives have been lost,
continued occurrence of this phenomenon could well mark the beginning of a slow
death of the music industry and its direct beneficiary – the tourism industry.
While some EDM festivals of international repute have put Goa on the world map
by featuring world class international DJs, other trance parties where drugs
are consumed in a rather non discreet fashion, happening in secluded pockets of
Anjuna and Vagator organised by nameless entities, are doing enough to taint
Goa’s image, thereby nullifying the attempts of the former.
