MONSOON HAVOC: Scenes from the flooding taking over capital city Panaji this week in the wake of obsolete drainage systems not cleaned before the onset of the monsoon rain. Low lying streets virtually became tributaries of river Mandovi. So much for political promises! This are Patto Panaji and Dona Paula-Miramar bypass pictures

LIFE continues to become more grim in private and in public and I like to think one has an impact on the other! Only the government of the day sees ache din everywhere and is busy celebrating its victories real and unreal. I must confess I have not been moving out of home because of the rains and flood situations capital city Panaji.
As far as the roads in Goa are concerned Goa is still a far cry from being like Singapore. It’s fine for minority khaas aadmi folk who between half-a-dozen homes around the country and abroad, move in fat tough vehicles with state-of-the art suspension, looking at life out of sealed grey or black windows…but ask any working class commuter and he or she will tell you even if they are fully geared in raincoat, helmet, boots to go to drop the children off to school and then go to work – it’s a difficult ride out in lesser four-wheelers or two-wheelers.
With all the Metrological department’s Orange and Red alerts going out about the rainfall and flooding in capital city Panaji and elsewhere in Goa, where poor infrastructure is collapsing and folk are slipping into potholes and some committing suicide (who cares about them), I hate to say it anew but we have a government of more hot air than anything else and as for capital city MLA Babush Monserrate’s assurances of “I assure Panaji will not face any further flooding and drainage issues” in a fancy media video making the rounds…he can go jump into the St Inez Creek which he has wilfully allowed to turn into a chocked, encroached filthy nallah. I don’t think anybody takes his promises seriously anymore, not since he promised to move the casinos out of river Mandovi to come to the hot seats of power, profit and control. Goa’s politicians are all alike with a very few exceptions.
The daily newspapers have been carrying extensive coverage of Goa drowning under water and I don’t have to tell you more about where all the smart city funds have gone. A government which celebrates 100 days or a 1000 days by patting itself on the back constantly is living in a fool’s paradise of ache din on a borrowed or currency print order economy (backed by nothing but the lootmaar politics) will get its just desserts sooner or later.
I am reminded about some wisdom making the rounds on Facebook posts. The first goes like “Things money can’t buy are manners, morals, respect, character, common sense, trust, patience, class, integrity, love.” The other one is courtesy the old Red Indian culture of America…”When the blood in your veins returns to the sea. And the earth in your bones returns to the ground. Perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you. It is you who belong to this land.” Make what you will of the quotes, I just took a shine to them as words to reflect over by all of us living down the slippery path of long lived exploitative capitalism and am wondering when its days would be over!
Do you know that amongst all the modern monetary theories there’s one called the Chicago School of Economics which says let’s do away with spendthrift governments forever…check it out, I haven’t done so yet but will do one of these days. Today’s governments are really blooming insanely in a boom and bust economy (something called “deficit capitalism”) dependent on endless cash print-outs. I’m no economist but I know a carrot, tomato, banana, apple costs me Rs5 these days and my friends abroad say “It’s cheap, we are paying Rs25!” Comparisons are odious, different countries, different situations and stresses.
But the bottom-line is our governments grow fat on strangulating the people to death and if you notice what’s happening nowadays is the middle classes so stable to date, are slowly slipping into a poorer class category although not yet in BPL category yet. You want to live on government hand-outs and doles and be forced to vote for it in a capitalist or imperial autocracy – forget democracy, most democracies are degenerating into imperial autocracies!
If I am to believe my friend Dr Shiva Ayyadurai in his through-provoking talks over Facebook which I catch now and again. (Did you know that in the US of A governments are cutting expenditure on people and reportedly President Obama was forced to print $4.3 trillion and President Donald Trump printed $6.9 trillion to boost the American economy in what is called the “evolution of deficit capitalism” which elite governments are patronising at the expense of their people’s miseries?
So where is truth, freedom and health in our lives? We’re losing track of all that to our own increasing detriment. Well think about all this and don’t just think, my dears.