By Rajan Narayan
AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when the Dr Pramod Sawant government decided to set up a permanent 365-day Sunburn in Vagator. For a Saturday following the week when when the battle between Babush Monserrate and Subhash Phal Desai over the Baingunim waste management plant. For a Saturday following the week about the large number of Catholic bhatkar spread across Goa. For a Saturday following the week remembering the birth centenary of two renowned Goan writersm Manohar Rai Sardesai and Ravindra Kelekar.
AND a few stray thoughts on the Dr Pramod Sawant government deciding to set up a permanent 365-day Sunburn in Vagator. The Tourism Department and Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte seem to have decided to encourage Electronic Dance Music. Rohan Khaunte obviously understands the huge revenue potential of EDM festivals.
Even with no Sunburn the nightclubs in Anjuna and Vagator thrive on EDM. Basically, EDM is trance music which is the legacy of the hippy era of the 70s. Trance music is a mind-blowing reproduction of electronic vibrations which drills your mind into a trance. I have experienced the impact of this numbing kind of high decibel trance music on my mind at one of the early EDM festivals.
You cannot tolerate this kind of high intensity music unless you are on some kind of drug. Indeed, the nightclubs in the Anjuna-Vagator belt have always been a major outlet for drugs. The government of Goa has been unwilling to chase Sunburn out of Goa because it is a huge source of revenue. Not so much for the government as for the politicians, the tourism and travel trade, and of course the police by way of huge bribes.
I understand the Dhargal MLA and the panchayat were allegedly bribed Rs5 crore or more to extend permission to Sunburn. Sunburn moved to Dhargal from Vagator primarily because the Calangute MLA Michael Lobo was allegedly demanding Rs10crore to permit them to have the festival in Vagator. Vagator is part of the Siolim constituency which is represented by Delilah Lobo, the wife of Michael Lobo.
Interestingly, the Bible’s Delilah refers to a Biblical temptress who renders the mighty Samson powerless by cutting off his hair. Legend has it that Samson’s strength was in his hair. Now Michael and Delilah have succeeded in persuading Rohan Khaunte to set up an EDM zone in Anjuna. The Goa Tourism Development Corporation owns a large 1.5 lakh sq mtr property in Vagator.
ORIGINALLY, the playboy entrepreneur Nandan Kudchadkar used to run the first major nightclub on this property. Now, according to Tourism Department official, we have proposed to develop a plug-and-play entertainment hub at Anjuna-Vagator beachside. This will be akin to a permanent Sunburn gift by the Pramod Sawant government to north Goa. The proposed saffron Sunburn will have sophisticated sound systems, lighting gizmos, stage set-up and audience amenities.
Rohan Khante is very ambitious and wants to attract international music groups like Coldplay to Goa. The problem is that Goa does not have a big enough audience or an event place to make it viable for foreign bands to come to Goa. You need a paying audience of at least 50,000 to a lakh to attract the top names in live music. The stadium in Mumbai where Coldplay had three concerts recently has a capacity of over 40,000. There were three concerts catering to the thousands of fans at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai.
Coldplay also held a concert in the one-lakh-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Indians are now willing to travel to destinations within the country and even Sri Lanka and Thailand to attend concerts by international music groups. In fact, several Goans rushed to Mumbai to attend the Coldplay concert, last week.
BAINGUINIM WASTE PLANT
AND a few stray thoughts on when the battle between Babush Monserrate and Subhash Phal Desai over the Baingunim waste management plant. The original proposal to set up a waste management plant at Bainguinim which is in Ribandar was made about two decades ago. This came after the capping of the Curca dump which catered to all the waste from Panaji.
Curca collapsed when the late Manohar Parrikar decided to make a dumping ground for garbage from all over North Goa. The educational complex where the Panaji schools have relocated has come up on the earlier Curca dump and there has been a desperate hunt for an alternate garbage dump.
As the Panaji housing hub keeps glowing there is no place for the huge amounts of garbage being generated. It is very convenient for the Revenue Minister and Panaji MLA Babush Monserrate to revive the proposal for creating a huge management plan at Baingunim. The government had already acquired the land needed for the dump. The problem is that the proposed dump is very close to the Kadamba Plateau which has become an extension of Dona Paula, the builders who have invested heavily in the project at the Kadamba Plateau are opposing the garbage dump.
Historically, the Church has also been against the waste management plant at Bainginim. The claim is that the plant might affect the heritage monuments near the area. Babush is trying to force the plant on the Cumbarjua constituency represented by Subhash Phal Desai. Phal Desai is backed by the Kadamba real estate lobby. Not surprisingly Phal Desai warned Babush as the waste management minister went ahead with the Bainginim project he would be dropped by the BJP cabinet. Babush in turn has threatened to put his candidate Pandurang Madkaikar in Cumbarjua. Madkaikar is very close to Babush and has been the Cumbarjua MLA for two terms.
AND a few stray thoughts on the large number of Catholic bhatkar (landlords) spread across Goa. The Catholic bhatkar are not necessarily confined to Catholic majority constituencies. Though admittedly Catholic bhatkar control a lot of the land not only in Salcete but also in Catholic dominated areas like Candolim, Calangute, Aldona, Santa Cruz, and even Mapusa. The village of Candolim is completely dominated by the Catholic bhatkar. Most of the past and present sarpanch and MLAs of Calangute are mundkars and tenants of these Catholic landlords.
We recently discovered that there are very big Catholic bhatkar even in the Hindu-dominated taluka of Ponda. I understand that many of the Catholic bhatkar are converts from Hinduism. When the Portuguese occupied large parts of Goa the Hindu landlords converted out of fear that the Portuguese would take over their property. When the bhatkar converted their mundkar (tenants) also followed. This is how Catholics came to dominate several parts of Goa. The Hindu bhatkar were very opportunistic. They tried to be more loyal to the Portuguese than the Portuguese officials themselves.
We do not know if the notorious agent Monteiro was a Catholic bhatkar. Many Hindu families even modified their names. The Dempo became Demphe. The Counto spelt their name as Khaunte. Most all of them reverted to their Hindu names after Liberation. It may be recalled that Mauvin Godinho recently claimed that he had gone back to his Hindu roots.
This is true of Catholic converts in Goa. Even after conversion, they continue to observe several Hindu traditions. The Catholic families now live in fear after the BJP government came to power. Now the bhatkar have lost their power and much of their property to their old mundkar or tenants. Many of the bhatkar have been selling their property and moving out to Portugal since they no longer enjoy the their old importance and influence.
AND a few stray thoughts on the rent-a-villa scam where thousands of tourists have been cheated. During the tourism season entreprenial conmen have been offering villas for rent, particularly in north Goa. These conmen have reportedly hacked into established and popular online portals like booking.com. These scamsters have been offering non-existent villas for rent to tourists at very steep rents. These are very attractive to tourists as even at the high rents they are cheaper than five-star hotels during the peak tourism season in Goa. The scam was exposed when a resident of Chandigarh was induced to pay Rs20,000 for the so-called Ruby Villa in Assagao.
The tourist, Pankaj Dhiman, discovered that there was no such villa anywhere in Goa, when he landed for his holiday. Apparently, the racket was being managed by people from Hyderabad and Jaipur. It is been estimated that the racket which has been going on since 2022 has claimed over 500 victims. It’s incredible. The north Goa police SP has filed a case against four conmen including three from Hyderabad and one from Jaipur. All this conmen who are operating illegal call centres where they were pretending to be agents of reputed hotels and online booking portals. The scamsters even posted attractive pictures of the non-existent properties. Goa was their main target.
SALUTE SARDESAI & KELEKAR
AND a last stray thought on the birth centenary of two renowned Goan writers, Manohar Rai Sardesai and Ravindra Kelekar. Manohar Rai Sardesai was the bard of the Liberation struggle and the historic Opinion Poll. Before the Opinion Poll, Manoharrai Sardesai had come up with the slogan “Zaayat Zaage” which was the title of his book of poetry on Goa’s unique identity.
Manoharrai Sardesai was also the poet who wrote the very popular poem for children called “Bebeanche Kazaar” (Wedding of Frogs). Though on the surface it is a children’s poem it an allegory on the secular fabric and character of Goa. Every Goan should read it. Sardesai talks about various frogs which attend a wedding – big frogs, small frogs, dark frogs, light frogs, all shapes and sizes of a community of frogs coming together for the wedding of frogs. They have a gala time talking to each other. An unusual take on Goan weddings which also attract and unite guests from all of Goa’s communities – Hindu, Catholic and Muslim.
The late Ravindra Kelekar on the other hand is a classic novelist and writer who revived Konkani literature. He was the first Goan writer to get the Jananpith award. I had the pleasure of interacting with Ravindra Keleker though I arrived in Goa after Manoharrai Sardesai had passed away. I recall that Ravindra Kelekar was the first writer who was given a state funeral by the Goa government. We remember him with a lot of affection.