Seriously, there is nothing wrong in what Gabriel de Figueredo said, unless this began as a joke from RKN and then took off. And I am not saying this since my mother is a Figueredo. A paan chewing idiot does not implicitly mean that any person who chews paan is an idiot. It was the spittle which triggered the association to a lackadaisical pan chewing person, who felt comfortable or simply had to let it seep (or rip) in Melbourne. This does not imply that it is OK to do this outside the Goa Secretariat, or the Panjim bus stand or anywhere for that matter in India.
But we are all different, with varying levels of consciousness, social skills -- adaptability, capital, and also perceptions. There are villages in Maharashtra, where prevails a sense of decorum, and social identification that upper class people could learn a thing or two from. So paan spitting is out except in certain areas, and so is drinking altogether Quite often, the ones who need paan are those who are staving off hunger by dropping a meal, as opposed to someone who is have pan as a kind of "dessert," if you will. This is what most people who eat pan say, as if that identifies them with anything other than having a penchant for consuming paan. Then there is addiction. But the poor, and among them particularly the ones who project themselves with dignity as their journey into the city, do try to take care where the spittle gets discharged. India, in its charge towards modernity has not really provided the infrastructure for its citizenry to come to terms with modernity. That means drinking water in cities, toilets, spittoons, and so forth. The individual in Melbourne in all probability might even have been a well-heeled person who could not care less; perhaps he is even a well settled Indo-Australian; or an Indian who happened to be having too good a good time after a game. So its not the paan eating, chewing as I see it but the attitude which is read through that splotch about Indians (although it very well could be a Lebanese or Rhodesian who did it), and the embarassment and sometime the riducule (which many cannot face or respond to) it causes those making a life outside India. venantius Gabriel de Figueiredo wrote: > > > This morning, I went to a ATM near Preston Market. I had to do a double- > take - in the corner, conspicuous by its presence, was a bright-red > splotch. That left by paan. It could not be anything else. A paan- > chewing idiot had done his bit to leave his DNA behind... > > Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:14:07 +0530 From: "Radhakrishnan Nair" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Why do you have such a poor opinion of Indians, Gabriel? :-) > Mario asks: > Why do you have such a poor opinion of the truth, RKN?:-)) >