The new tourist season starts with an itch – with Israel escalating their war on terrorism having ramifications in Goa as, at one time, Israelis were the bread and butter of Goa’s tourism industry.
If things in the Middle East are bad, the scenario is not too welcoming here with resentment brewing amongst locals in the way hills are being cut, trees are being chopped and the demography of the place so admired, simply being made to vanish.
A hungry man is an angry man, they say, but a silent community is worse, and the silence amongst the locals seems to be slowly erupting with calls for protests getting loud and clear.
Strife starves any industry, especially an industry that depends on strangers, and whose ethos is warmth and hospitality. For years, we have watched trees being cut, hills disappearing and what started, for many, as scratches have now festered into wounds.
Strife starves any industry, especially an industry that depends on strangers, and whose ethos is warmth and hospitality.
People in Goa are nice, and that need not be announced. But, that niceness should not be exploited – don’t pull the hand when you are offered a finger.
Protests have been planned against rules that have been framed that permit cutting of hills, against illegal constructions, against where Sunburn should be hosted, against mega real estate projects.
All this when the season has started on an even roll – the shacks are starting, the weather is improving and the stakeholders appear ready to welcome the first foreign guests.
When there is a problem, the guest need not worry much because they will always be protected. At the most, they may have to avoid sightseeing or roaming around till a solution manifests.
There was a time when Israelis could be seen all year around. Now, it is the turn of the Russians for whom the southern and northern ends of the coastal belt have become home.
There have been complaints that Russians are eating from the tourism pie, just as there were grunts about the Israelis back then, but the short and the sweet story is that the presence of a few leads to the arrival of many. So, let’s not make that an issue.
There have been complaints that Russians are eating from the tourism pie, just as there were grunts about the Israelis back then, but the short and the sweet story is that the presence of a few leads to the arrival of many.
Strangely, when the Israelis looked like they were making Goa their second home, there were instances where the balloon of drugs burst on their face. Similar is the story with Russians and now, Indians.
Goa was first loved because it gave the foreigners uninterrupted access to organic drugs like hashish and marijuana. Organic or chemical, a drug is a drug and in the end, it psyches and most times, the damage is irreparable.
From chillum smokers to acid heads to smack heads to powdered noses to chemical zombies … the story is long, but definitely not worth the wait because highs are static.
As in the past, the season will once again welcome tourists into a basket of tranquility in the south, and a humdrum bowl in the north, and the peace lovers will once again be divided from the party freaks by many rivers.
The government has taken the right way forward by demarcating roads with no bottlenecks for the stakeholders. The shack owners are happy, but most tourists would be far happier if taxi owners prepared themselves with a smile before the cloud bursts over the industry.