Just yesterday it was Mr. Manohar Parrikar's 50th birthday. I join fellow
Mhapsekars and other Goenkars in wishing him well. Fifty years is an epoch
like any half-century. May he live to be a hundred and three. that is
what we wish anyone for whom we sing the birthday song...although life
expectancy in India is 70 years .The 61st birthday is celebrated in India as
Sahashta-purthi [ the completion of 60 years of life], because not
everyone gets there. Parrikar has less than a dozen years[ ek tupp] to reach
there. I hope he lives it with grace as he did with zeal thus far.
Naughtiness does not seem as nice in the elderly as it does in toddlers and
teenagers.
Only the NAVHIND TIMES can one find a front page headline that reads BJP to
fight next polls on a morality plank: Parrikar for a report on a birthday
of a former Chief Minister turned Opposition Leader. that is as far as
English newspapers go. We have one each in Marathi and Konkani that may
follow suit. Afterall, the reason why Parrikar celebrated his 50th
birthday[with the ever obliging Babush Francis D'Souza, who had
unwittingly but willingly led the BJP vandals to Hotel Mandarin earlier, as
a 'front'] was to make a political statement. Even when he was in power as
the CM of Goa he did not celebrate his birthday. If he had celebrated his
49th birthday after successfully[infrastructually for the state; financially
for him and his cronies] conducting the IFFI, it would have been nice.
Perhaps he considered the party on the Khorjuem bridge as a celebration
enough then. In any case, Babush is not famous for funding someone else's
event. the money must have come from somewhere else. Perhaps, the account of
the dudh-peda or soft drink supplier or pendal contractor will showif
they have been paid at all!
I am told that the SAANJ MANOHARI was pay back time for artists from
Maharashtra who were funded earlier by the Parrikar-led Government for the
infamous VCD and the equally controversial potrayal of Goa's history and
culture in the Gomant darshan from a vantage point in Maharashtra! Funny
how Mr. Manohar Parrkar was never actually in the Maharatrawadi Gomantak
Party. Many of the persons at his birthday party were Maharashtrians.
How can the Mhapsekar MLA of Panaji not have a celebration in Panaji,
specially with a friendly CM and Chairman of Kala Academy in place? Had not
Parrikar retained [pun unintended] him in that post when the BJP-led
Government was ruling the former Estado da India Portuguesa. The Rane's have
a legacy of collaboration with despots. This was just another of the same
type. The Portuguese brought in Siddis; Parrikar brought safronites. Babi,
Shabi poca differenca!
Addressing a massive gathering of his supporters and well wishers at the
Dinanath Mangeshkar Kala Mandir, today evening, in commemoration of his 50th
birthday celebrations, Mr. Manohar Parrikar said that Bharatiya Janata Party
would approach the Goa electorate during the next assembly election with the
Bihar Formula which saw the fight of money and muscle against the strength
of morality and character. is what only one Reporter of the Navhindtimes is
capable of writing. No prizes for guessing it right.
Chew on this:
*The massive capacity of air-conditioned DMKM auditorium of Kala Academy
is 987 seats after renovation for IFFI 2004 by Parrkar-led Govt.
*The supporters and wellwishers had actually come to see and listen to a
battery of stage artistes who had come to perform[no pun] for the Saanj
Manohari [pun obviously intended by the promoters of the Beautiful
Evening otherwise they might have called it Manoranjan, incidentally the
name of the hindi remake of Irma la Duce.]. Some of them were congressmen.
Others do not have any known party affiliations. Had it only been speeches,
the less-than-a-thousand seater hall might have been half empty.
* Tomazinho Cardoz had his first English play The Verdict to a packed
audience in the same hall earlier this month. He has renounced active
politics.
* Tickets were not available for Dinyar Contractor's play on 11 November in
the same auditorium. they were sold out in advance for a pretty penny. Ditto
for Kasturba Gandi Trust's fund-raiser, A funny thing called Love.
*The Bihar Formula does not necessarily work in Goa. Ask Mr. Arun Sinha
['officially' the Editor of Navhind Times till today] of what happened about
his 'Bihar Formula' with a Bihari minor-aged girl in Panaji-Goa. Arun is a
Bihari himself. Parrikar is not. May be the BJP should consult the law books
and and the Goa Police first. Adv. Vilas Thali is not good enough. At one
point of time, he was my family's lawyer in a land acquisition case [which
he had conveniently walked away with from Adv.M.S.Usgaocar's office, where
he worked earlier as a 'juniour'] and Parrikar's lawyer in a Power scam
case-1. The verdict had been passed in our case. Two years later, I had to
find out and tell him that! His junior, now a Mamlatdar, helped me get the
money from the High
