I agree with RKNs overall assessment, and believe the "mix-up" could have been deliberate. Besides that RKN, this is one the best pieces from you. As India moves towards claiming a choicer parts of the global pie, any apprent dissent will pay a price. Personally, I do not feel that Gabriel's comments have been anti-India, though they may have affected some people. Also, have often recently wondered whether IAS officers posted in Goa have as a tiny part of their tasks, expected to, or voluntarily keep a tab on so-called dissent. This is very much plausible, and would have to do with how one sees and seeks answers to ones place in community. In this Goa could well be a case in point. This is also depressing, because then one is at the mercy of someones lobes, keystroke and perception. Someone mentioned hyerbole, but that is what is needed to express such thoughts. Not a sterilization through the writing often seen in baseline scholarship, where progress means high-ticket pork barrel expenses.
As time goes by and I meet the few friends back in India, I have realized that most comments are ill received. I had one person telling me not to say anything about India unless I have lived two years on the ground. My singular question had to do with diagreeing mildly with her notion of the what it means to be talented. This person was born into a comfortable family, people who pay thousands in rent and are well off. Basically, in the matter of a minute, I was being rendered mute. So all my complex experiences were in one stroke worth nothing. All my interventions in fights, arguments, pulling people our of nasty scenarios, making peace, were well, nada. It was basically STFU. The conversion bit was another issue. The more I talk with my pal Madhav, the more I realize that small and petty mindedness of some who we regards as our best Indans. It is one thing, if one is being abusive towards ones own, and it is something else to take affront and ubrage at small indicators such as parking or well-heeled people pushing across the train-ticket counter in Delhi, or some ustad who feels that my sitting next to their daugher on the train is going to soil future generations of progeny, lord forbid corrupt her through my energy. I am not even talking about defecating on the street. Infact I am not talking about anything that has to do with things and situations beyond the control of the common man (so to speak). This has something to do with the soul of the person and the soul of the nation, of the collective. As time goes by, and people are accepted in rooms across Asia and Europe, perhaps more of those Indians will have less of fake complusion to complain -- as they are slowly beginning to; as their identities become more saturated through an osmosis of acceptance in the West. And hopefully they will operate differently while back in India. If they were to look closely, they will realize that they are not being accepted for who they are, but for what they have become, willing to become and what they can be made to bring to the table. I could be wrong, but so far not a singe discussion on Goanet has taken into consideration our avoidance of responsibility (its like in a marriage, where the man blames the woman for his inablility to see anything through her eyes), at boorishnes, chauvanistic, being heedlessly nationalistic. So no attempt at looking at oneself at a time when this is quite precisely the vehicle needed for self motivation and fulfillment. Things like say, this is what ones impression of Goa was and how that has changed, we have been duplicitous but it time to move on, we have benefitted and now move with the best, we are doing wel and marrying the best that is on offer, being offered and offering itself up, etc., etc, etc. And again, I am not talking about the common Indian. There are many Indias as there are Indians and neither coveniently allows itself to be pinned down -- not to fossilize either, but to engage with either of them. venantius j pinto > From: "Radhakrishnan Nair" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [Goanet] Goans' tryst with pirates ( and US Africans ! ). > <<As for his trouble with the Indian visa, I fear it's a result of his > anti-India views. It's likely that his activities are being taken note > of by the Indian authorities and the "mix-up" is deliberate and a > warning sign.>> > > Cheers, > RKN > >