Sun, Surf, Skin & Sin
As thousands of sleep-deprived young metrosexuals emerged bleary-eyed from a week of trance/techno/house/reggae/boutique live and Indian rewind at New Year events from Candolim to Cavelossim, the more earthy dehatis began to pour in for their dose of “Goa” over the year-end. Busloads of Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, Andhraites and Kannadigas among others disgorged at Dona Paula and Calangute for water scooter rides and the photo-op perched on the edge of the Dona Paula jetty.
Where exactly were they headed for New Year’s eve, one might have wondered. The litter on Miramar and Calangute beaches Tuesday morning said it all. It isn’t difficult to figure out what the mostly male Indian tourist that descends on Goa in packs driving down in SUVs and jeeps sandwiched to capacity has in mind. It’s purely the cheap liquor and the chance to ogle at bikinis on the beaches.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The events of the past week ~ three mega beachside concerts, promoted by some of the biggest names in the event management space ~ give us a sense of how easy it has become to exploit the image of a “laidback Goa”. For people in the business of making serious money, Goa is the place to easily make more serious money. HCN, the cable news channel run by the Herald media group, ran a report recently on Sunburn which is marketed as Asia’s largest electronic dance music festival. Going by the organisers’ claims that close to 100,000 had attended last year’s Sunburn, the event would have pulled in at least Rs 72 crore from gate charges alone, HCN said. A three-day pass for Sunburn 2011 cost Rs 8000. But what did the State government get out of the 15 per cent entertainment tax? A mere Rs 1.16 crore when it should have been closer to Rs 11 crore. Passes for this year’s Sunburn were, regular: Rs 8855; VIP: Rs 14,950 for all three days. Daily passes were priced at Rs 3,450, Rs 4,600 and Rs 6,900 for the last day.
The commissioner of commercial taxes enhanced surveillance on the venue last week to keep tabs on the ticket sales after the media reports. For the entertainment marketing group that runs Sunburn, Goa’s a convenient location for the show. If Bangalore or Gujarat offered a better deal and higher returns, they’d just as soon relocate there. They already have smaller versions of the Candolim Sunburn in Sri Lanka, Mumbai and Noida. But Goa’s another story. Here we have so much going on in the free-for-all party zone that no one’s keeping tabs.
And so the organizers, Percept, can comfortably peddle all the usual stereotypes about Goa on its website to push ticket sales: “Welcome to Goa, the land of sun, surf, skin and just the right amount of sin! …as a popular joke goes: There are three things that surely don’t exist: The Loch Ness monster, an honest lawyer and an unhappy Goan… If there’s one thing Goans love more than drinking, it’s eating (although, to be fair, sometimes it’s just a welcome distraction from all the drinking).” Yes, it really is that blah.
Further down the coast, complaints kept pouring in about parties and loud music at Mandrem, Ashvem and Morjim, close to turtle nesting sites. Though the new beach shack policy makes clear that music and bright lights after 6 pm are banned from turtle nesting sites, the deputy collector okayed several parties close to the Mandrem and Morjim beaches.
The clearances were revoked only after an animal rights group made a complaint. But this is Goa, after all, and for every square inch of the tourist coast there’s an MLA or sarpanch or panch or cop or some other local authority willing to extend a hand and look the other way, if they are not blatantly complicit in the illegality as is the case with several clubs and small hotels in North Goa beaches. Just as rampaging mining spiralled completely out of control, the unrestrained tourism and entertainment industry is putting Goa on a self-destruct path.
It’s time the government moves speedily into damage-control mode and launches a serious probe on all that’s going on in Goa’s coast in the guise of tourism.
