‘Thrash Them’
This is an editorial comment headline in the English Goan Newspaper ‘The Herald’ in response to an article a few days ago when two Indian Supreme court judges called for people in office who were found guilty of corruption ‘to be hung from lamposts’.
This is a verbatim response from ‘The Herald’ just to give you a flavour of the debate here. It is written in a rather comic, convoluted English but stick with it if you can.
‘Thrash Them: Should Goa follow the advice put forward by Supreme Court Justices S B Sinha and M Katju that people who hold public office and are corrupt should be hanged from street lamps. Considering that corruption is an integral part of Goan public life and nothing happens if some palm is greased or some favour accorded to some politician, then perhaps this advice, which may sound drastic, be the cure for the states woes. Yes, while hanging from street lamps may take Goa back to the dark ages, some stringent remedies are needed to remove Goa of this scourge which is affecting way of life. Agreed hanging is a bit drastic and not possible in Goa but something needs to be done to stop this. The reason it has reached endemic proportions and no one party should be excused from this scourge because a finger can be pointed to many officials and ministers. Be it permission to hold rave parties, awarding contracts for festivals and even getting land sales passed, something has to be passed under the table and this has to stop. While hanging can be out of the question, who knows frustration may reach such a level that a public thrashing may be on the cards.’
Whatever the papers say life continues its daily grind as normal for the local Goan people. We were woken this morning at around 7.30 am by the sound of men chopping down a coconut tree in grounds of the small-holding behind us. Hard work in this heat and they were still at it 10.30am. The house is a big square building surrounded by 50 or so coconut trees and a few papaya and banana trees. There are chickens and pigs running free. Somedays there is a lot of excited screaming and shouting emanating from elderly women who live in the house when the chickens decide to walk up the back steps to the kitchen and invade the house. While the tree was getting chopped up, two other men were untangling and repairing a fishing net on a very large unravelled blue tarpaulin. More hot work!! The only sounds from the garden except for the rhythmic axes on the tree is the monotonous ‘croaking’ of a Green Barbet high up in the canopy and a Magpie Robin blasting us with its tuneful virtuosity while sitting on a barbed wired fence in front of our kitchen. At the front of our apartment, one of our neighbours is cleaning her car, another smartly dressed takes her equally well-attired small son to church while her young Hindu maid, sits looking bored and lonely on the second floor balcony waiting for their return.
Flying Ants
On Thursday night we were gate-crashed by a load of uninvited visitors. The spare bathroom and the lounge were the main areas of invasion. We sprayed vigourously with the very toxic HIT cockroach spray and quickly vacated the apartment to go for dinner. When we returned a few hours later 400 to 500 winged corpses lay strewn across the floor.
Lin left on Friday and we spent most of the day at the apartment. The excessive Merlot Port wine and the Honeybee brandy I had consumed the previous evening had its usual numbing effect. Late in the afternoon we went to Colva to return my newly bought glasses for repair again! We also had to pick up a replacement pair of sunglasses for Theresa as the first pair were faulty. I won’t bore you with my purchase but as usual it has involved many returns and disappointments to the Agnelo’s Optics shop.
After Colva we returned to Benaulim and went to the beach at about 4.00p.m where we met a lady called Debbie (who hails originally from Ashton under Lyne). She has been working in India for the VSO for the last two years for the princely sum of 8,000/- (94.00) a month. She is passionate about the people and the country and has just got a new post working with an HIV charity which is based in Chennai. We had a very interesting discussion about India, its politics and left the beach at about 8.30 p.m to have dinner at the Meridian.
