All I want for New Year is……my two front teeth – and all my teeth for that matter – to retain them that is…so I can still masticate and digest the food as we should have it — in its original organic form, not Bt Brinjals, not genetically engineered food, not the kind of rice that I neither have the firewood for nor can afford the LPG gas to cook, so that I can still eat beef and the bombill (Bombay duck) fish and chew the ‘ghontam’ mangoes in the ambya umannem dish. At the rate at which crime is increasing in Goa, this is a premium wish.
….my fingers, so they are not chopped literally or figuratively by someone who resents my pointing or naming those State instrumentalities that are brazenly violating their obligations under the Constitution; by someone who resents my speaking out against our country’s financial institutions that will give a one billion dollar loan to the Adani Enterprises to start a coal mine in Australia, but not even a small housing loan to the small time constantly staying Goan for her house construction or repairs, because creditworthiness ironically is weighed in a scale made of money; so that my fingers can keep keying communications without the Damocles sword of 66A of the Information Technology Act hanging and being misused.
…my tongue, so that I can continue to — speak without fear, gently speak words of love and care, sharply speak out against the corporate greed that dispossesses people from their lands and their livelihoods, also against the ills of the past and continuing in the present, such as the caste system — even if it is not convenient for me to, against a globalization that puts profits and not people at its centre; so I can still taste food with local salt.
…my eyes so I can see evil (unlike those three monkeys – bear resemblance? – out there who are supposed to see no evil) and expose it, so I can see the illegal construction activity that is invariably condoned by all the powers that be and also all the inspecting authorities, so I can see the receding coast line at Coco Beach at Nerul and shout out that rising sea levels have to be something we need to seriously be concerned about; so that justice for me is sought to be achieved not by blinding oneself to realities but by being seized with the reality and then taking a call.
…my ears, so I can still hear the sounds of the parrots, the parakeets, the woodpecker, the kingfisher, the crow, the bulbul …and I don’t have to take on their role of tweeting and telling the world that they live and let others live like them; so I can still hear the sound of the waves and of the crickets announcing the rains.
…my feet, so I can walk my talk and know what it is when someone doesn’t; so Goa may not sink in the muck of dishonesty and corruption, guised under more sophisticated kickback masks, most importantly when dealing with anything related to land.
…my hands, so they serve and so that they can be raised in praise and appreciation for the value of other hands that make it possible for us to have the pao and the food that we eat, and the efficient garbage disposal, but do not engage in underhand dealings with whoever that be that we come across in connection with work, who keep their drawers open; so I may have the possibility to raise a toast if the health department restores its nutrition division and doesn’t go chasing lifestyle diseases alone.
…my nose, so I can still smell the fragrance of humanity, the fragrance of the chrysanthemums (sheuntim), the mogras, the amaranths (abolims sounds better), the periwinkles (perpets), the kingfisher flowers, and also the ganari, the fragrance of the mud as the first rains bless the soil, of the little fires burning that will keep mosquitoes at bay.
…my skin, so it can still feel the sweat of people who work day in and day out to make a living and whose labour rights are at stake in a ‘Make in India’ world, where as I move (choltam, choltam) the one who rows the boat and all those travelling in the boat (they call them consumers these days) will lose control and big boats will drown small boats while dangling fish that we cannot reach to eat; skin that can still feel the tears of the many who grieve for someone lost, the tears and anguish of those – “at all levels” – who have suffered injustice simply for not fitting into norms dictated by prejudices of caste, ethnic origin, gender, class, sexual orientation – how many more little girls raped? how many more women violated in their homes or outside by men and power that crushes, before there can be the light at the end of the tunnel of investigation?
…water — accessible and pure, that will still be the source of life for us, not aerated drinks and high jinks, and golf courses which make Chief Ministers and politicians (specially today) and which will suck the waters out of Goa and contaminate them,
…air — clean pure air, where purity is defined by its value to life and not as a categorisation for discrimination; air in which music will continue without being drugged by supersonic waves.
…a dictionary where while fenestra can get added, janela, zonel, khidki, window, will have their rightful space to continue, under a sun that will not burn me.
…memory that will record both the injustices of the past and its gloriousness, so history does not repeat itself.
…choice, real choice, where we as citizens can choose where our schools will be located and facilities established, what kind of development we want, whether we believe in nuclear armamentation; where we can ensure that Parliament does not uphold the just passed ordinance amending the land acquisition law, and that the Goa Government drops the amended 16, 16A of Goa’s Town and Country Planning Act and makes it Panchayat and Municipality raj-compliant
…above all, agency, real agency to shape our destiny and decide the kind of special status, if Goa should have it; not a special status that will keep the power structures and modes of domination and exploitation and oppression intact.
(Albertina Almeida is a lawyer, human rights activist and an independent researcher.)
