Friday’s midnight fracas at Calangute after a two-wheeler owned by a foreigner was lifted by police into a towing van for flawed parking, highlights the simmering tensions in the Sinquerim-Candolim-Calangute-Anjuna tourism belt. The hotelier who was involved in the brawl only made matters worse by pulling out a revolver which he fired first into the air and by some accounts even in the direction of the crowd. This incensed the crowd that had gathered, provoking some of the locals there to ransack his property.
What is perhaps not so strange is the manner in which the locals united against the two foreigners involved in the initial arguments ~ the Russian woman who had committed a parking offence, and an English tourist whose intervention forced the police to let off the offender without penalty for wrong parking. The question that comes to mind is, would such behaviour be permitted in the countries the two tourists come from? And would an Indian citizen have dared display such arrogance with the police if they were in a foreign country?
The manner in which the local people united in support of the police also reveals the growing discontent brewing in tourist villages across Goa. In this case, the fact stands out that the Baga-Calangute zone is seriously congested and overpopulated with new settlers of all types ~ including masseurs and petty businessmen. People from all over India and even overseas very visibly now outnumber the local people. Calangute is bursting at the seams, especially during the tourist season, sending out the impression that the village is in the grip of a perennially unending mela. And the problem is not only the lack of parking space.
There is a serious problem with mobility around the Calangute-Baga zone which is most apparent during New Year’s eve when the Baga road gets so overloaded with tourists that there is absolutely no place to run a car, forcing people to walk to reach their entertainment hotspots. Local residents in this tourism belt are virtually under siege during the Christmas-New Year season, some of them unable to even venture out to shop. Many people living here are known to stock up their refrigerators to avoid the crowds outside in the year-end week. There have been instances where invalids have been relocated fearing traffic bottlenecks in the event of medical emergencies.
Calangute is indeed a civic, social and cultural time bomb waiting to explode ~ the result of bankrupt planning and over-development. Indiscriminate and illegal constructions with the silent blessings of the local authorities have ensured that the world’s top destination is heading towards chaos and more chaos. Tourism may have brought a measure of prosperity to this part of Goa, but it has also changed the attitudes of its people dramatically. In some of the properties here, what was once an area allocated by the bhatkar in goodwill to store salt and household goods belonging to a mundkar, has been converted into residential accommodation, only to be further improvised into a guest house and later restaurant. Indeed, guest houses and restaurants have mushroomed all along. Even those landowners who left a three-metre setback for road construction before building their compound walls find this “public” space now encroached upon, given that even a square metre of property in this belt comes at a huge premium. The concept of parking slots is virtually nonexistent and successful restaurateurs have either hired out prime land to be used for parking for their guests with private toll as parking fee, or bought off the adjoining plot of land at astronomical figures.
Evidently, the creation of parking spaces in the North Goa tourist coast has become a huge challenge in itself. The government has a number of “development” projects in the pipeline that it proposes to execute through the tourism department in consonance with the Goa Tourism Development Corporation. Whether these will help improve mobility in what is the heart of Goa’s tourism coast, is to be seen.
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people’s edit
All work and no play…..
Ashley Fernandes
This article has reference to an article (Herald, June 19, 2013) under the heading ‘Extended school burden’ by Dinar Barros as also the many other parents who have had the courage to ridicule the move by way of their letters.
Well to begin with, I am in total agreement with what Barros and the other parents have to say and I am pretty sure that there are many more that are of the same opinion, but are tight lipped for reasons best known to them.
It is rather shocking that the government could take a decision of this kind, as it not only robs the child of his or her time to catch up with extracurricular activities, but also makes him or her a “classic bookworm”. We parents need to be taken onto confidence before a change of this kind is made. I’d like to remind him and all those instrumental in supporting this decision that, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Hence parents like us, have already enrolled our children into music schools/public speaking institutions/art & craft institutions/sports institutions who have their timings fixed according to the already existing timings of schools. This move by us parents, helps in the all round development of a student.
May better sense prevail because these decisions could have an adverse effect not only on the life of students as children, but also parents who care for the welfare of their children? Will tuitions be done away with, by extending teaching hours in school? Why the extension in the hours of schooling when the same portion was successfully taught year after year, by teachers within existing schooling hours, with the best of results displayed? The government needs to realize, that as much as it is important for students to spend time with their studies, it is also important for them to spend quality time with their family, and inculcate necessary values in helping them grow as responsible individuals in the future. It is not sufficient being academically brilliant and a stranger in the house. If the government wants to ape the West or the rest of the country, then what it needs to ensure before doing so is a well established transport system in Goa; fool proof security measures to ensure the safety of students. Most importantly, text books given to children at schools, reach them within a week of the schools reopening. As of now we are into the third week of the new academic year and students are yet to receive all their text books.
It’s easy to have an ambition, but you need to have the required ammunition too and also equally important to weigh the pros and cons. Hence it would be advisable if the decision to extend the hours of schooling be reversed. Last but not the least, I do hope this is looked at with an open mind and not as an attempt to find fault, because to err is human, but the flaws can be ironed out with one accepting one’s mistakes and working on it.
