By Dr Oscar Rebelo
MAY DAY, MAY DAY
The latest kerfuffle that is going to grab the Goan eyeballs and balls this winter is going to be the perceived lock, stock and barrel shifting of the airport from Dabolim to northern Mopa.
The drug cartel, pimps, and other assorted economy drivers of Goa can take a lazy break.
Goans should be out on the streets on this airport issue for the foreseeable future.
So, what happens, if the tectonic shift occurs and Dabolim is indeed shut down forever and converted into an air and space museum.
Think about the positive advantages.
- Salcete the nerve centre of environmental protests and incubus of Goa’s most corrupt, ideologically bankrupt politicians will be the biggest gainer of the shift to Mopa.
•You read that right.
•The biggest gainer.
•With the hordes moving northwards, Salcete will no longer figure high on the list of the real-estate market, no longer the attractive bride-to-be, lured by the greedy hotelier and real estate grooms .
•The entire South for that matter: Quepem, Sanguem, Canacona, still pristine, will not be like an attractive brothel to these goons eyeing land here.
•Villages will be villages.
•And cities will be less cluttered.
•And the noise may even die down.
•And, miracle of miracles, South Goa may be forced to elect decent, honest politicians, considering that the treasury of a number of the current thugs will run dry.
•Yes, some economic turbulence in the short term may be there, but it is economic turbulence that triggers genuine change, genuine Renaissance, genuine
reinvigoration.
•People from the metropolises in Europe drive miles to get to their Spanish, Italian and French Rivieras.
•Discerning folk from all over India will drive to the South Goa Riviera if it is kept natural, clean and beautiful as it already is!!
•Isn’t this the nub of the Save Goa protests that erupt periodically in Goa?
•So seize the opportunity, reinvent, reconfigure, and get your bloody peace of mind.
Sometimes apparent jolts are a blessing in disguise. - The Sindhudurg belt.
•To any self-appreciating retard, it is logical that the biggest beneficiary of the Mopa airport is going to be the Sindhudurg belt.
•The most gentle, easy-going, respectful, genuinely warm and simple people I have come across in this country are those from Sindhudurg and its interiors.
•The last vestige of man living in complete communion with nature in our part of the world.
•But that is going to be their biggest downfall.
•Their simplicity.
•Because the vultures have already purchased parcels of land out there, the size of Ukraine, and everything that has destroyed Goa:
drugs, casinos, coastal violations , unplanned development, is going to engulf and burn this beautiful, beautiful land like the wildfires of California.
•In a decade or so , the Goan tragedy is going to befall Sindhudurg.
•Strangers in their own land.
•The decimation of a way of life by the relentless Mahasur of greed. - Panjim.
•One of the most chic cities in India, though l regularly retch and vomit everytime l cross it, smell it or see it—that a friend of mine commented that perhaps I suffer from chronic morning sickness.
•With tourists heading far north there is a good chance that the casinos for economic and only economic reasons may move there or downscale operations here.
•We may possibly be saved the horrors of their porn shows masquerading as ads, or their waterfront obscenities displayed on public land.
•Maybe Panjim can be reimagined as a literary, arts and architecture capital.
•Maybe a world-class museum can come up here.
•Maybe we can breathe again.
•But then if wishes were horses, morons would ride.
4 The Calangute- Candolim-Anjuna belt.
•This will remain, exactly like it is, Dabolim or Mopa.
•The dope, no hope, cannot cope, feel free to grope, don’t mope, hanging by a rope, with Saint Lobo as Pope, the sin-belt of Goa.
•That is an area of no redemption.
•Grotesque.
•Scarier than Halloween.
•And a place Narkasur would be proud to call his kingdom.
•There you are then: this is my case that maybe Goa may have a slim chance of survival after all.
•Let go of Dabolim.
•Mopa is already here.
•For the genuine street anger and the fake political battles fought by the Cong-BJP combine, the rest of the citizenry may well fasten your seat belts, fold your tray tables, watch out for turbulence and enjoy the flight.
•The landing will eventually be safe.