LUCKY TO BE A GOAN By: Bennet Paes I had a visitor the other day at my office. He was a businessman from Delhi. He said to me: “Man, you’re lucky to be a Goan”. I saluted him for the compliment, but was rather inquisitive to know whether he was a fortune-teller in the guise of a businessman. I asked him why he said what he said. Then he went on to say even more: “ Goa is something different. Goans are more disciplined, god-fearing and soft-spoken which, by the way, also makes Goa a soft- target ……so on and so forth”. I heard many such accolades before, both from ‘local’ foreigners and ‘foreign’ foreigners, but was not quite sure if politicians were also included in those showers. Not surprisingly, my Delhi guest set the record straight in a series of swipes, as we dragged on to the burning topic of all times – corruption. He charged head-on: “ As I said, Goa is a soft-target for thieves, terrorists, thugs and all the t’s you can think of. Add to them the rapists and the extortionists. They lay their hands on Goa’s soft maidens, with as much ease as on its maiden lands. They call it collateral damage, and the politicians do not disagree”. “However, all this is only peanuts compared to Delhi. Here in Goa a Minister may buy all the tickets for a cricket match and sell them in the black market. In Delhi they buy the whole stadium and sell it to Real Estate developers.” I asked him why the scale is so huge in Delhi, and he explained in simple math: “ Goa is only a small State in India, while Delhi is the capital of all the 28 States and 7 union territories, therefore corruption is 28 + 7 times bigger, relatively speaking”. “The only consolation is that there is one person among the political gangs in the entire country whose dictionary is printed without the word ‘corruption’. This person is our Prime Minister. But unfortunately, he too is made a soft-target like Goans. The opposition politicians argue how he could be the leader of a country when he is not even an elected representative of the Loc Sabha. The P.M in his typical demeanour reminds them that he is an economist, not a politician, and that he is to corruption, what a saint is to Satan. “And listen to this before I dash off to catch an IA flight to Delhi which, in all probability will be delayed until tomorrow”. With sarcasm at its best, he pushed it yet further: “Discipline in India ended in 1947, the year the British took it away with them. On the other hand, Goans were lucky to live with it for 14 years longer, until Mr. Nehru got jealous of you and spread the curse to the entire nation. Perhaps now you will know what I have been saying all along, won’t you?” -------------------------
