Blood on your hands !

submitted by the author to TGF on May 13, 2003

`The way out of trouble is never as simple as the way in.’

I understand Shakespeare’s Macbeth had an obsessive compulsive disorder. But dear Mickey Pacheco, there’s no escaping washing your hands off this murder. This is not the first time that hapless tourists, who lose their sanity over the beaches of Goa (have you seen how they go bananas at Miramar?) have lost their lives to the sea.

It’s not the last time either.

It’s happened before, and will continue to happen in the future too. Words, we have learnt through experience, don’t hold weight anymore. Or faith. Even sincerity of thought and action these days has a price tag. Unless you’re prepared for an emotional upheaval.

The loss of human life in India, hardly raises an eyebrow. It doesn’t. It makes great headlines and even greater copy. Add a couple of gruesome pictures, like they are feeding us about Iraq on the sly, and the world moves on to another beat the next day. The loss is entirely personal. Tears to be shed in private moments. Like the families who bear the loss of the nine tourists who went on their last joyride in sunny State, never to go home and tell other hopefuls that paradise truly exists in Goa. It doesn’t. Not at the rate past statistics show how tourists have succumbed to the sea, umpteen number of times and are still being victims, because Goa does not boast of life saving infrastructure along her coastlines. Or even life guards, for heaven’s sake. The lookouts and signboards are all around, yes, but where are the people meant to man these places?

Goa’s tourism sector – especially along the beach sides – is a Pandora’s box of illegalities waiting to explode. Not to mention the bustling fly-by-night activities that go under legal sanction – after a local godfather has blessed it, or simply ignored its existence – to promote adventure tourism. Groups pop up from nowhere and disappear just as fast, hawking an itinerary touted as presumably safe, sound, better than their competitors, so could we make a fast buck please with our good intentions? They’re showing us an alternative Goa you see, so be grateful please.

I shudder to think what happens on the Crocodile Dundees and backwater tours that may make use of dinghy boats on the verge of splitting under pressure. There’s no certificate to declare the age of the vessel. Nobody cares to find out either. Same with the tour operators, who are, most often just out of college and trying to make a living.

God forbid, if you learn that you’ve been towed in a boat by a new kid learning his skill on the job, at the risk of somebody else’s life (like budding truck drivers learn the wheel from seasoned truck drivers on the road, and are most often responsible for gruesome accidents too). I’ve refused several invitations till date to dare risk ending up as dinner or brunch to some hungry scavenger looking for a bit of adventure himself. Brrr…

All hotels around Goa invariably tout these operators, but nobody really voices concerns as to the safety equipment in use, or the safety quotient of the passengers in case of an accident. A seasonal activity, in my opinion, which has to be controlled by a proper enforcing agency. Fat chance if you think tourism is promoted the same way abroad like in Goa. Or even Kerala for that matter. The loss of life is minimal, because the laws are transparent, strict and firmly enforced to ensure nobody gets taken for the ride to hell. I went on a submarine dive while on my visit to Maui’s picturesque whaling town in the US – this when I’m terrified of the sea – and my fears were laid to rest by the team conducting the ride with demonstrations of all possible safety equipment at their disposal. Of course, its another thing that on descent to the ocean floor the tour captain played Titanic’s soulful ballad to amuse us, while we all shivered with dread. But hey, it was an experience never to be forgotten. The mighty Norwegian Star too conducts a compulsory mock drill for passengers before it sets sail into the far ends of the Pacific, right from how to wear safety gear and its functioning in case you have to abandon ship. Ok, so I cannot expect the same standards here, but can’t we ensure bare basics to save life?

Having traveled extensively, I would expect the tourism minister to have a grip on his portfolio by looking into the facets that constitutes tourism activity in Goa. Beginning with the licenses, antecedents and experience of tour operators in the business – big or small. We cannot brush incompetence as an accident. If it’s illegal, it’s murder. And our hands are all tainted. There’s no running away from it.

Will Mickey get serious at least now? This I gotta see.

Ethel Da Costa
May13, 2003

Ethel Da Costa  is a senior Goan journalist and editor of Insight and Mirror, both magazines  of the Goa Herald.  She also covers Goa for  Femina, India's premier magazine for women produced by The Times of India. Ethel writes that she loves her work and finds it to be fun, writing about issues she believes in..

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