Dear Parrikar Sir,
Good morning. My respects to you and our fellow Ponjekars for a never-say-never die spirit. With the heavy monsoon still upon us, this spirit seems to help tide over constant flooding streets. A virtue I have always admired as a core value of a person’s true strength and character. But lately, I’m beginning to feel let down. I was looking forward to our acquaintance again after your stint from the US. But it was not to be.
Your portfolios were my favourite, since you kept most of them to yourself, and along with that a tight-lid on vital information which should have been accessible to the public in a true partnership of the State’s development. But, I have been accused for being too idealist and liberal in my interpretation of democracy as truly of the people. Your claims to set things right tall and exciting, and hence you had had my rapt attention. But too soon do hopes dash when you build them on towering expectations. Having meant to share this with you in person, I share with you now, as the truth doesn’t need earthly time zones. So, please hear me out patiently.
As a student, I was most times, the teachers’ pet. Not of my own design though. As my curiosity and intellect grew – fed on books, travel, discussions and a political conscience fuelled with autobiographies, poetry, ideologies, encouraged by supportive teachers – I learnt that CHANGE begins with YOU. SELF. Since I was set, head-strong determined even, to take the path less trodden. It taught me the lessons it had to teach. Your students – I used to be one of them when you first dazzled my imagination as a leader who held forth his mind – I had held you in reverence for firing my and our State’s zeal. I had wished more teachers had encouraged their students to express their individuality, a quality so missed in our social leaderships and education curriculums today. Most I’ve encountered with, in all of my avatars, displaying a false sense of self with limited shelf value in times of adversity. They say time tests true character, because even if environment maketh a man or a woman, they can change it at will. Perhaps the sole reason why God gifted His creation with Free Will. So really, our choices alone make us who we become. And we become who we want to be. In full ownership of the choices we exercise.
Which brings us both to our favourite city: Panjim. Where we, almost neighbours by politics, and shared friends by ideology. In all the years that we shared and walked the same streets, the same risks of reckless traffic without a care for pedestrians, the same garbage indiscreetly dumped around our colonies, disorderly construction and open corruption, I never once bumped into you. Strange. Since I walk so often around the city on chores. It bothers me, the neglect of Panjim. Reflecting the neglect of our State, in the same measure as a child suddenly made parentless, a city now out of control.
My memories of Panjim go back as a teenager visiting family friends from abroad, playing boisterously sheltered by bright street lights at dusk, sunny skies by day, ensuring our parents enjoyed their indoor chit-chats and noon siestas without worry. Now I see complete strangers urinating openly on compound walls in broad daylight, irrespective of little children playing around in close proximity. It is a daily occurrence around the State too. Laws being broken fearlessly, enforcement with prejudice. It prompted a phone call to the municipality on open defecation, the authority promised action. Must inform you that I called 100 two nights in a row to test our State’s police response to distress. To my disbelief and shock, the telephone had shrilled late and long into some distance of the night, unattended, like an orphan truly abandoned even by God. It had distressed me so much as I shared this stark, unnerving, reality with a city editor on perhaps why crimes against women had shot through the roof in our peaceful State. It made me realise when we are often told at corporate management meetings: The leader at the top always sets the pace and tone for his team down below. Has your failed leadership now truly become the death of this beloved city, and our beloved Goa?
I wish I could tell you this in person. I’m sure we would nod along our heads in helplessness. How did we become these people? Yes, I agree, it’s good to be feisty. It prompts action. Several Mayors and MLAs have come and gone, but none with the will required to clean up the city of her open wounds: Matka in the open, haphazard triple parking, congested traffic, uncollected garbage, sewage and stink, potholes and flooding, mosquitoes breeding in open drains, defecation on the side roads by tourists, infested canals taking the filth of the city to the sea and bringing back scabs of dead wounds to breed more disease. Like a dark, dench storyline from Gotham city, infested with roaches, rouges and the rough necks. A lawlessness on the edge of spilling over and consuming the capital city. I for one can feel it in my bones. Can you too? You had promised to straighten the corrupt with a roar, not break bread with them in acquiescence. The rebirth of Panjim now waiting for a sturdy, strong shoulder, because her weight is heavy, obese with her neglect, her abuse of self, bad habits and excessive consumption of corruption. Where did you lose your way? Or, did you just give up?
(Ethel Da Costa is an award winning Lifestyle Journalist, media professional-influencer, writer and published author)
