Family of a Goan taxi driver, who was brutally killed by Russians, struggles to survive. And this is just one such story of terror and dominanceBasuri Desai I The Goan ,Morjim01 June 2013 Russia hasn’t yet heard of taxi driver Ravi Shetgaonkar. He is dead. But if Kremlin’s representative, the Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin did, he would have measured his words in Goa last week, where he literally asked Russians to run their own taxis as businesses in Goa. Kadakin’s carte blanche to a blatantly illegal activity has got even a feeble response from the state government but at Madriwaddo, the dead Ravi Shetgaonkar’s family, killed by a drunk Russian, is still trying to piece together their shattered lives. They live in fear and dread.While the Russian dominance in Morjim and its extended arms of Anjuna and Ashwem, have virtually been colonised by Russians, it is the sheer muscle flexing and boorishness, epitomised by Shetgaonkar’s killing, which dominates the Russian experience.And His Excellency Kadakin’s official backing to Russians running their own taxi services, breaking local laws, puts someone like Shetgaonkar’s killer in the driver’s seat. In parts of Morjim where The Goan travelled to, the statement means more than just loss of business.It means giving up territory. This story cannot be understood without going to Mardiwaddo, the home of Ravi Shetgaonkar, to hear his story.On February 16, 2010, on the Morjim-Ashvem route, Shetgaonkar honked impatiently as the car in front of him would not let him go. The 45 year old Shetgaonkar, the lone bread winner in his family, was on his way home for dinner. The car in front stopped as a Russian stepped out. 27 year old Alexander Borowski, an employee at Rococo Restaurant accosted Shetgaonkar. In the ensuing scuffle, all about one car refusing to give way to another, taxi driver Shetgaonkar lost his life.The Russian Borowski is still in judicial custody. This is just a glimpse of the brute Russian domination of North Goa. While a measly few of its residents share the spoils of Russian tourism, the majority live in terror. Shetgaonkar was the first casualty in Morjim, where a villager had lost life in a fight between Russians and locals.The level of tolerance has gone down since then. As Russians roam around menacingly, the locals too aren’t taking it lying down. The battle lines are drawn where Russians stick to their own kind and this is how Russian run taxis, shacks and businesses that have sprung up.But life did not go on for Shetgaonkar’s family. His widow and three children fight a dozen battles every day, struggling to make their ends meet. With Shetgaonkar’s death, the family has to subsist on crop from their own farmlands. In the absence of their father’s earnings, his children cultivate the lands with their mother. Ravi Shetgaonkar’s taxi has been given off to his brother to operate and repay back the bank loan.“It was my father’s dream to reconstruct our house. We were about to begin when this atrocity happened. His dream remains incomplete,” says Atmaram, Ravi Shetgaonkar’s elder son studying in the first year in college. His anger at Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin encouraging his countrymen to get involved in the taxi business is palpable.For the family, small pleasures have become struggles. “May was the month when Baba used to take us out shopping after the charter season,” rues Sandesh, Shetgaonkar’s second son currently in standard 11, “Now buying new clothes is something that we cannot even dream of.” His younger brother Suraj, a physically challenged child who is studying in Sanjay School for Children with Special Needs, looks on wistfully.“We can only hope that Goa government makes some effort to curb the Russians’ illicit activities in our village,” says Gunaji Shetgaonkar, Ravi Shetgaonkar’s cousin. Ambasaddor Kadakin has dimmed that hope with just one line.
