Imagine you hire a taxi to take you to Colva, but the cabbie insists on taking you to Calangute instead. How would you react? Our own elected Government that runs on our money often behaves like the adamant taxi driver who is bent on taking you for a ride of his choice!
What people want is a clean and green garbage free Goa where Mother Nature is worshiped and the law respected. A Goa of rolling hills and gentle meandering rivers, verdant fields and lovely deep and dark forests, lush mangroves and sun kissed salt pans, cascading waterfalls, pure rejuvenating springs, whispering brooks, quaint serene villages and seemingly endless palm fringed clean sandy beaches.
What we get to see is the blatant day light rape and brutalization of our land! Hills being cut down, forests being massacred and fertile paddy fields filled up to make way for concrete jungles. Now even mangroves and saltpans are targeted: all in the name of Development! Our very revered Coconut tree no longer enjoys the status of a tree and if those in power have their way, soon the Cashew tree will be reclassified as a shrub!
After messing up with our towns and cities, builders are fast moving towards the coastal villages. Mushrooming ugly building blocks have started disturbing the symmetry of our quite & serene countryside. If one observes minutely not even 10% of these building blocks are occupied or bought by end users, but still our greedy guys, who pretend to represent us, go on issuing permissions for Mega housing projects as if the whole of China is coming down to live here.
Another classic case of Government’s adamancy is the long boiling issue of medium of instruction. People want a choice, but the government of the day thinks that the common people of Goa and their children should start learning only in Konkani or Marathi medium. The rich are never the less free to educate their children in English, French, Mandarin or any other language of their fancy. That the Government of the day has not yet stopped grants to English Medium Primary schools is perhaps because of political compulsions or may be because the guys at the helm of affairs are not yet mad enough to do anything as ridiculous. But God forbid, if the present dispensation and their cahoots have their way, soon there could be trouble in paradise!
A cocktail Government dominated by the Dhavlinkars, Parsekars and Arlekars actually stopping grants to church run English medium Primary schools is a looming possibility. It will indeed be a pity if the well educated people of Goa bring back such politicians to Power. Such a dispensation will at least use all tricks to sabotage the church run schools so as to arm twist the common people of Goa into admitting their wards in Konkani or Marathi schools – Konkani or Marathi is the word, but the objective obviously is to promote Marathi language and culture.
Does the funds for Education and for anything else for that matter, come from anybody`s private treasury for those in power to impose their antiquated views on the people? If the Government can decide what medium if best for the children of Goa, surely it can go a step ahead and also decide what food should be served to them! Will a future Government headed by one of our archaic politicians (besides banning Bikinis on the beach) also keep a strict check on Tiffin boxes to ensure that western influences like ham-burgers, noodles, pizzas and pastas don’t poison the stomachs of our children? And if they introduce authentic foods for mid day meals, I hope to see my favorite nachni imbil/tizann on the menu.
