HOME EVERTHING EXPOSED -------------------------------------------------- |
IN DEPTH |
STRAY THOUGHTS By Rajan Narayan BOLLYWOOD THINKS GOANS ARE WHORES, DRUNKS AND DRUG PEDDLERS! -------------------------------------------------- |
ISSUES 'EVERYTHING INCLUDED' SELLS GOA By Jonquil Sudhir -------------------------------------------------- |
ONE MAN’S VIEW RECONCILING WITH THE PAST By Philip Knightly -------------------------------------------------- |
BEHIND THE NEWS DEATH STALKS GOA ROADS (Assembly questions excerpted and interpreted by Goan Observer ) -------------------------------------------------- |
TONGUE-IN-CHEEK “GURUJI, THIS IS POLITICS!” By Aravind Bhatikar -------------------------------------------------- |
HEALTH COMMERCIALISATION DESTROYING DOCTORS? By Dr. V. N. Jindal -------------------------------------------------- |
EATING IS FUN A variety food column By Tara Narayan MONSOON VEGGIES GALORE! HOME & HEARTH SIDNEY LIBANO, BAKER EXTRAORDINAIRE! By Tara Narayan -------------------------------------------------- |
TRUCIAL TAKES DUBAI ROULETTE OR FULL CIRCLE By Armen -------------------------------------------------- |
BOOK REVIEW IS AURORA’S ALMA AT PEACE NOW? By Ben Antao -------------------------------------------------- |
SHORT STORY CROSSROADS - IV Continuing Keki N. Daruwalla's story from his book "The Minister for Permanent Unrest and Other Stories" -------------------------------------------------- |
OLYMPIC SPECIAL ON YOUR MARK, GET SET…. By Irineu Gonsalves -------------------------------------------------- |
SPORTSTRACK By Irineu Gonsalves EXCEPTIONAL OLYMPIANS -------------------------------------------------- |
GOENKARANCHO AVAZ |
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THE GOA tourism establishment has dropped the baseline “Everything Included” from its advertisement. The phrase was apparently dropped because of protests that the phrase tended to suggest that Goa was a Soddom and Gomorrah where wine and women were available for a song. That "everything included" has mischievous and undesirable connotations. That tourism officials of course have been at pains to explain that they intended no harm. The phrase was coined to reinforce the belief that Goa is an attractive bargain destination. That "Everything Included" only referred to the fact that the package included food and boat rides and health club facilities. What everyone has been fighting shy of admitting and acknowledging is that the phrase was actually coined to reassure tourists that unlimited booze was part of the package. While raising a hue and cry about "Everything Included" all concerned including the Goa government, the tourism establishment, the tour operators, the hoteliers and even the hypersensitive NGOs have surprisingly maintained a total silence over the other campaign to defame Goa launched by Bollywood. The campaign that should bear the baseline Goa everything exposed. We are referring to the film Julie which has just been released in Goa. By all reports it has set the screens blazing in Mumbai and elsewhere and the cash registers are ringing loudly for the producers and the distributors of the film. The film posters which expose acres of nubile flesh very glibly talk of a beautiful mind and a bold profession. In the film the principal character Julie is a Goan and a whore. A whore in fact who goes on television to talk about the bold and beautiful profession that she has chosen. In any other state in the country if a movie or even a play had labelled a prostitute Maharashtrian or Tamilian or Bengali there would have been a storm of protest. There would have been shrill cries demanding the banning of the film. The Shiv Sena would have called for a bandh if a film had projected a Maharashtrian or a Mumbaikar as a prostitute. But Goans presumably have become so accustomed to the stereotying of the Goan and the Goan Catholics in particular as whores and pimps and drunks and drug peddlers that they have learnt to live with the gross distortion of Goa’s image. Or maybe we are just far to easy going and too sussegad to raise our voice in protest against the latest attempt at denigrating Goa and Goans. Tourism industry representatives whom Goan Observer spoke to concede that Goa’s image as a place where everything goes and where the women are as cheap as the liquor is largely the result of the stereotyping of Goans as whores and drunks and drug peddlers by not just Bollywood but Mollywood also. It does not help that all the young men who come to Goa by the bus loads discover that Goan girls are as chaste and virginal as their sisters back home and they will not admit that they did not get anywhere in Goa. That they did not "score". On the contrary, when they go back to Jalandar or Jalgoan or Jumari Taleya, they boast about their imaginary conquests. And flash pictures of themselves with scantily dressed phirangs who either out of their good nature or because of constant badgering allow themselves to be photographed with these louts. And the fact that many domestic tourists come from small towns where the only part of the female anatomy that is exposed is the navel or the ankle only inflames their passion and their libido. They cannot understand or appreciate that Goa and Goans for historical reasons have a Westernised lifestyle and that wearing western clothes or displaying a little leg is normal. And it would obviously be absurd to swim in a nightgown as many domestic tourists tend to do. The bitter truth is that successive governments in Goa and tourism ministers are largely responsible for the distorted image of Goa in the rest of the country. Remember all the ads in the eighties showing bikini clad woman and boasting of how Goa is the Bahamas of the east. And tourism brochures whether put out by the government or tour operators inevitably talk about Goans being a fun loving people willing to break into a dance at the drop of a hat. Not knowing that Goans are forced to break into song and dance to entertain the tourists. Because there are few other job options in the state. There was a time when some politicians suggested that Goa should call itself "God’s Own Country". But considering how Bollywood portrays Goa it would be more appropriate to call it "Satan’s Country". We are raising this issue of how Bollywood has distorted Goa’s image because the entire state machinery is now involved in rushing through at break-neck speed to get the infrastructure for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) ready in time. To fulfil the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's obsession to convert Goa into another Cannes. At which event no doubt several Hollywood nymphets will accidentally and unintentionally expose various parts of their anatomy a la Janet Jackson. Our apprehension is that IFFI will only reinforce Goa’s image as sin city. It is high time that everyone including the government, the tourism establishment and indeed the church, voice their protest against Julie, a film which represents the gross distortion of Goa’s image and criminal defamation. MOG ASSUM RAJAN NARAYAN
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