Ebb-tide

Ebb-tide


When the tide’s out you discover things-- topography, slopes, secrets, extent. It’s been a long ebb-tide for governance and trust; for valued notions of succour and security; for finding skeletons and carcasses, and mostly, for being caught in the buff, unprepared.

But a lot of the exposure and consternation that has come in its wake masks the fact that high-profile company or bank managements, amongst the more straight-forward thieves and murderers, have been punching much heavier than their weight, taking shelter under the warm duvet of a concealing and soothing high-tide. But the ebb-tide inevitably comes. It’s plain gravity, but this time it’s taken the high and mighty by surprise.

Talk of tides become graphic when one holidays a full two weeks by the sea. After the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai and specific threats made known about Goa, it promptly sagged/fell from India’s No.1 tourist destination to No. 3. It didn’t help any when it was revealed that there were a total of three machine guns amongst Goa’s constabulary, two operational patrol boats to review its coastline, and no training whatsoever to deal with terrorist bombers and jihadi commandos. And the terrorists, it was assessed, could come streaming/rolling/bounding in from land and sea, just as they pleased, if they were not already ensconced within the balmy state.

It is no wonder that the Goa Police took fright and gathered together the contents of an entire madrassa, the only one they knew of, outside Mapusa, for “verification”.

But, as I write this, halfway through January, it must be admitted that the Digamber Kamat Government did rise to the challenge, admirably, because there has been no incident over the Christmas and New Year season and indeed into 2009.

Of course there were numerous check barriers, all over the village roads and National Highway 17, 17A and 17B, manned by additional armed reserve police from “Delhi” who hence were unable to do double duty offering directions on how to get to Baga, Anjuna or wherever, particularly if queried in Konkani.

But the out-of-town soldiers were professional. All the last mile access routes to the beaches were closed to vehicles by night and day. Every tourist heavy street and bathing beach was patrolled by soldiers in fatigues toting machine guns and wearing watchful expressions. And the night market in Arpora, a magnet for tourist and local alike, has been banned indefinitely. Goa, and the visitor to Goa, has never seen anything like it.

Also, this season, Goa’s concern with security and safety didn’t stop with making life difficult for terrorists. There was an amazing beach-safe programme in place. Basically, as every beach bum knows, when the tide is going out, it is not a good idea to go swimming. There are things called eddies that are nasty sucking currents not in the least related to any pleasant Edwards one might know, and others called rip-tides that have every potential to rip out your life and return the rest, bloated, still and discoloured. Succinctly put--you could drown quite easily, particularly if inebriated.

The beach-safe programme is Baywatch strength – red Gipsies, water scooters, lilos and rafts with multiple clutch handles, many life-guards dressed in lycra, flags- red for when it is dangerous to swim and red and yellow when it is fine, look out posts that are no longer just high chairs stuck in the sand with no occupant, but old-woman-who-lived-in-a-shoe style double-storey constructs with binocular wielding lifeguards capable of looking out clear to the international water line.

All of this tackle, professionally organised with Australian collaboration, costs about five crores of rupees a quarter, and since it has come to Goa as of October 2008, it is clamouring for its first tranche of manna from the government. The Digamber Kamat Government has been dragging its feet, unsure about the efficacy of spending five crores to save the lives of a score or so of inept or reckless swimmers/landlubbers in harm’s way.

But the private company that has seized the beaches of Goa uses a powerful PR machine working overtime in The Herald immortalised by Mario as The Heraldo in his cartoons, being read therein by the family cat; The Gomantak Times (GT); and the newly introduced edition of the ubiquitous Times of India, localised with birth, death, remembrance, wedding announcements, anniversaries, New Year’s wishes from functionaries of the Comindades and members of the Goa Legislative Assembly. And not to forget the quaint birthday greeting advertisements Goans seem to revel in.

The Kamat Government may be wondering about the cost-benefit analysis. It saves, but not as many as would die if a local bus crashed into a coconut tree before falling into a pond. But even as the government ponders, beach-safe toils on, covering twenty of Goa’s most frequented stretches of beach.

Just how many people have drowned from reckless or amateurish swimming in the sea since Goa came into being, allegedly when Parashurama, the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu, shot an arrow into what is present day Benaulim, is a matter of some speculation.

Nevertheless, for the thinned-out but still numerous foreigners in season, this new fangled and energetic beach-safe programme must seem reasonable. But Indians, particularly from the North or West, the East or South of the country, used to being decimated and despatched periodically and in impressive quantity by our population controllers from across the way, need to get used to the altogether unfamiliar notion that their lives are actually worth saving.

The Goan beach-safe operation is a public service you understand. It hasn’t been put in just on the beach that Digamber Kamat uses. In fact, there is not a Goa or Central Minister for that matter, to be seen, and yet all this fuss!

After all, we Indians are not much used to action taken for the mere common weal. But sometimes, a little state like Goa can lead the way and help us develop a little self esteem. And this despite all that free-flowing liquor and naked ladies working on their even sun-tans. It is silly to deal in stereotypes. Because, as Alice Cooper, the Rock Star with the raccoon style make-up once said in praise of Country & Western music: “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” So congratulations Mr. Kamat. And Happy Republic Day.

(1,053 words)

15th January 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Published in The Pioneer as Op-Ed Page Leader entitled "Caught in the ebb-tide" and online at www.dailypioneer.com on Tuesday,January 20, 2009. Also archived online at www.dailypioneer.com under Columnists.