A case of Paranoia

Dear Mr Parrikar,

I need to talk to you again. It seems you are the only guy with some sense around this place. Perhaps, the only one who can convert sense into needy action. And soon.

I speak purely as a common citizen. A citizen with much worries, considering I’m a working mother too. I know you keenly follow headlines, even if you care less for political typo errors that irk you. Not to forget how you suffer journos who brush you the wrong side, time and again. But these concerns are genuine. Because sooner or later, we’ll much to worry about, if we don’t step on the brakes now.

An innocent three-year-old boy in Navelim just lost his life so brutally. And so suddenly, that it seems surreal. Like a bad joke somebody played to settle a score. Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter. I don’t think his parents think it’s a cruel joke either. I don’t. Not when I look at the strange faces crowding around my building area where I live. Not when I walk down the driveway and pass a hoard of migrant labour, god alone knows from where, working on an adjoining construction site. Suddenly, my neighbourhood is safe no longer for the little kids to play. Including mine. You know as well as I do that children have every right to run along and get their yah-yahs in equilibrium after a day in school. They have every right to a safe neighbourhood, a safe childhood, a safe play area, a safe growing up experience. But I am restless. Now even more so.

I understand that Goans themselves are to be blamed for this influx of migrants from across our borders. We have our noses up in the air, even if we have nothing to fill our tummies. So how on earth can we ever get our hands dirty with menial work? And our attitudes to others who get down on their hands is even worse. We snort, snigger, jeer and nudge when people go about their own businesses by themselves. We want our pretences. We want our `bhatkar’ complexes to be our calling card, our show of superiority over those grovel the earth for a living. Can I blame anybody else, except us?

I shudder to think what transpired between those few moments of life and death, on that normal Tuesday evening. I shudder to think the fright that must have gripped the body of this little boy. Was there something more they wanted, than just his gold chain?

Yesterday, on one of my irregular evening walks, I saw another sight that filled me with more disgust. My backyard had been overtaken by more non-descript faces, courtesy the annual fair that serves as a countdown to Ganesh Chathurti. The disgust turned into raw bile, when I saw what they had done to the St-Inez canal, and the nearby grounds. The entire area has turned into a public toilet, with scant respect for privacy or sanitation. Migrants were going about their sordid business in broad daylight, in the presence of children, women and browsing shoppers. There were no toilets set up to ensure that the neighbourhood was free of stink or sanity. Heck, they didn’t even care. My spaces had been taken over and violated. My balcony now feels like a voyeur’s gallery – a free for all view of defecating bottoms. Puhlease.

How do I feel? But of course I’m retching. How do you expect me to react?

What has this done to my children and the children of our neighbourhood? Into paranoid little adults before their time. They now have to worry if somebody gives them a chocolate. They have to be alert against over-friendly gestures. They have to think twice before talking to a stranger. They have to decipher a harmless pat on the back from a lingering overture. Its tough being a parent. It’s even tougher being a child today. I agree the times have changed. But did it have to change into such an ugly picture?

Can you and I do anything about this growing malaise?

With construction hyperactivity Goa has lately been bombarded with, can we ensure that we continue to remain a peaceful State? Can the systems at your disposal handle the migrant influx that Goa has been assailed with? Above all, can our children, and yes, even us adults, ensure that we don’t have to look over our shoulders all the time. Can anybody fill up the absence of this little boy who might have been the darling of his family?

In restless anticipation,

Me

Ethel Da Costa
August 28, 2002

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