'Rave' and Rant

Dear Mr Parrikar,

At the risk of sounding so-do-done, let's just stop sipping old wine from  an old bottle, please. For once, and finish this business for good, why don't you come clear about Goa's stand on rave parties, beach parties, acid parties, birthday parties, whatever. Why don't you put pen to paper, mind to matter, law to lathi and tell us which psychedelic hell you want to banish the dope heads, the MLAs, the sarpanches and hafta sniffing cops who actively and legally encourage and support the cocaine stupor, come every December. Because while Tsunami ravaged the seaside villages of hapless people down South, North Goa was ravaged by a wave of trance beats, high on mind-altering narcotics, as part of the Christmas and New Year celebrations. Everybody had a blast, got stoned and left the mess for the locals to clean up.

Predictably, every year I'm asked by colleagues of national television networks for sound bytes on how Goa goes ballistics at her rave parties.

"Do they really happen?" they ask me with awe. "Do they go the whole hog? You know, sex, drugs, free love, trance?" with nauseating wide-eyed _expression. `Of course they do. Ask Parrikar,' I told them this year.

I know for sure that you were aware of these back-to-back parties organized this year, the same way you are aware of the many hands that pass the monies, for black to be turned into white. It's a done rule. Given your understanding of politics, you know that well.

Restrictions get converted into legal sanction (and new bridges begin to sink) sound barriers blown to the wind, a few babus are invited to 'cut the birthday cake,' go into hyper 'image' building exercises and everything is hunky dory in dope town, sorry, Goa. The police don't come cracking, the chai wallahs make their moolah, the mineral water bottle companies enough publicity to have them raving till next year. Not to forget the bikes and cars the organizers have probably now bought for themselves, all in the name of funding the local temple, celebrating a child's birthday (these shameless blokes) or laying the foundation stone for a school. How sweet!

Not that the national media is buying this hogwash, but, the keepers of the Fourth Estate are few, fed as they are with so much imagery of beautiful beaches that the rot sinking in our lives is hard for them to see. The rot is sinking deep, Mr Chief Minister. And it is frighteningly disturbing.

Goa has pressing social issues that need top priority, because law breaking is turning into a way of life, if you only know somebody higher up.

Of course, we all know that the average politician is a glib-tongued treacherous animal who ensures his own survival first, but time to come clean on this rave and rant the media gets into periodically over acid parties. Come clean, come honest and spell out the nexus. Are these parties another medium of putting Goa on the international map, a la IFFI?(foreign films, foreign tourists, foreign exchange, what's the difference, right?).

Are these parties a source of revenue for a State now running on empty coffers? So, how much have your MLAs made? If you are endorsing their (MLAs justification for rave parties) existence with your silence, why not organize a government sponsored rave - that will clear the cobwebs once for all the debate on their legal status - that will certainly help Goa get out of the debt trap, post IFFI, considering the mega bucks a rave organizer makes (we are pro thinking. We have a mini-jungle around Miramar beach anyway). Go ahead. Put your finger on this pulse.

And while I'm on it, did you know that recently one of your cops pulled outRs 10,000 (all in cash) from her uniform pocket to silence a poor woman standing at the police doorstep to file a grievance of cheating against a fraudulent lover. Your cop was in a hurry, in line for a promotion and in no mood to show a pending case on her file. I'm told, first hand, by a witness, that she wasted no time in telling the poor woman to scoot back to her village, pressing Rs 10,000 into her palm, for her silence and cooperation. Ah, how well greased runs your paradise.

Ethel Da Costa
January 18, 2005

Back to Ethel da Costa sez

Back to Front Page