Rajan Parrikar wrote 1: Azad Maidan will will not be available for purposes of pissing, defecating, littering & loitering on the morning of Jan 30. 2: Inconvenience caused to our ghati brethren is deeply regretted.
Frederick Noronha wrote 3: Wonder if the people spewing out contempt for the poor on this forum every pause to even consider the role played by the "ragpickers", in cleaning the sh*t from out city. 4: Rajan is clearing missing (a significant) part of the picture, and his US-returned arrogance makes him unable to see it. Reena Martins wrote Reena wrote: 5: I've begun wondering what the American equivalent of the term 'ghati' would be. Any guesses? === jc's comment It appears to me (at least) that both Frederick and Reena have missed Rajan's primary (and indeed significant) point by a mile. Is cleaning the proverbial and literal 'sh*t from out city', the duty of the so-called ragpickers or is it the primary duty of the City which collects taxes from the residents - expressly (by law) for that purpose? So - why is FN justifying this public defeacation and micturation by whoever - on the basis that these folks are cleaning the other garbage from the city? What level of public disobedience of civility or public health law is FN willing to tolerate as a quid pro quo for picking the rags? Is the linear progression next towards accepting that a little pick-pocketing, choke and rob, rape and a killing here and there .... will also soon be acceptable from ANYONE who also cleans the city? WRT Reena Martins' query ...the term (once again) in the US for 'ghatis' is Hill-Billy (Pahadi in North India). Reema may wish to know that in NO part of the US will Hill-Billies be allowed to merely come and convert a public park into an open air toilet. Neither the public nor the govt will allow that. This happened to Margao and the Aga Khan Park while the Moddgoumcars ate sans worry in the toiletesque eatery run in the old bus stand by Manu. Now it appears that the rest of the Goans are following the lead of the Moddgoumcars and joining in the conversion of the rest of Goa into a mega-toilet. Bravo MGP, Bravo Congress, Bravo PDF, and Bravo BJP!! It is possible that this is what you envisioned for Goa. It is possible that this indeed was your dream ...and that dream has now been realised. Special kudos to Dayanand Bandodkar, Shashikala Kakodkar, Pratapsingh Rane, Wilfred de Souza, Churchill Alemao, Luizinho Faleiro, Ramakant Khalap, Ravi Naik, Dayanand Narvenkar, Luis Proto Barbosa, Manohar Parrikar and Digambar Kamat.....and whoever I may have missed Thank you ...for the filth you helped perpetrate in our once beautiful Goa. jc PS: I personally find FN's characterization of Rajan's fortright expression of pure frustration as "his US-returned arrogance" .....quite distateful. What is this, FN .... your own version of "non-US-returned arrogance"?
