On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, neil rangel wrote:
COMMENT
Its such an insult to our Goan Catholic culture that the term Goa should be used to name a gutka packet"Goa Gutka". Chewing beetel/paan is not part of our culture and this foul habit is nothing short of filthy, uncivilized, uncultured and offensive. Who would like to be associated with it? Besides being carcinogenic...
Dr. Neil de Jesus Rangel. Otherwise from Sao Estevao, Ilhas.
Dr Rangel, I think you're unfairly stereotyping somebody else's food/cultural practices and then using prejorative labels to describe it.
What one accepts or not is intrinsically linked to what one is used to over the generations. I don't believe that there is any superior or inferior culture. It's just different!
Your comments come across, to me, as much like those of people who castigate the Goan Catholic for eating the "unclear" meat of the pig.
Actually, I think it's more than unfortunate the the 'gutka' sought to cash-in on the brand-image of Goa, while having nothing remotely connected with this State. Yet this is not an issue of religion. (People do chew gutka here; probably less now due to government laws and other steps brough on, in part, due to the campaigns of concerned citizens and NGOs like the late Dr Sharad G Vidya and the National Organisation of Tobacco Erradication.)
FN
