Election 2009's hangover is still on. Many, particularly our television anchors and journos, are still trying to decipher the meaning of the verdict, and their versions keep changing every passing day. All that was said during the month-long campaign is forgotten. Celebrities and socialites who clamoured for the politicos, crying hoarse over the 'no vote' option have dissolved into the post-result 'Rahul Gandhi Jai Ho' slogan about the dimpled Gandhi scion. But back home here in Goa, a smart and media-saavy bureaucrat, seized the moment to get back at the vociferous, all-talk Page 3 brigade. It truly was the bureaucrat's day in the sun.
A Page 3 socialite gathering may not have been the ideal situation for the bureaucrat to strike... but strike he did and how!
The occasion: the voting session organised by Anil Ambani-owned BIG FM for its 'Big Goenkar' awards at the plush Gera enclave at EDC's Patto Plazza last week. The FM station has unfolded the second edition of the awards, and apart from the SMS voting, it held this physical voting session for a select group of 60-odd 'special voters'. Editors, hoteliers, sports administrators.. name them, and the big-named Goans were there.
The FM station is giving out five awards and has nominated three to four Goenkars for each category. The voters had to pick one in each category. Even as this process was on, the young turk of Goan bureaucracy -- Sanjit Rodrigues -- walked in. And, as soon as he was delivered the voting sheet, this is what he spontaneously exclaimed: "Don't you have the 'none of the above' option?"
My vote for Sanjit!
Oh, the rains!
I read, ironically somewhere in cyberspace that "Blowin' in the wind" legend Bob Dylan, has appealed to kids to give up gadgets and soak in more of the earth outdoors.
Blasting cell phones, MP3 players and video glames, Dylan is insistent that kids get out of indoors for 'more in life'.
"Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets," the web portal quoted Dylan as saying.
Dylan's advice couldn't have come at a better time for our own kids here in Goa. With the monsoon knocking, there's no better time to smell, feel, see and cherish mother earth. Walk to school, splashing muddy waters from the pools along the path at peers. Get punished for reaching late because catching tadpoles seemed more important than school.
But will our kids be allowed these nuances of the monsoon? Or, will we drive them to the school door-step with our CRVs, chevrolets and the many other brands? And, while at home, glue them to the many idiot-boxes we have?
Ravi's foot-in-mouth
SM (short-message) jokes on the 'sardar' of Goan politics, Churchill Alemao, is a bygone and this Salcetian politician now has competition in Home Minister Ravi Naik, who could soon crawl to the 'numero uno sardar' position here in Goa.
Saddled with the one-day-at-a-time confessions of Mahanand Naik, the home minister is grappling with himself to put up a brave face before journos. Not that the two-time former chief minister is particularly known for his oratory or clever answers. But sample this:
'Dupattas should be banned' he says, fielding questions on the policing disaster that the Mahanand Naik saga has turned out to be. And, on the Russian mini-sequel to the Scarlett Keeling high-drama, 'foreigners should be stopped from drinking and moving about at nights' was his terse comment while defending the probe into Russian teenager Elena's mysterious death.
For sure, our HM has a big foot in his small mouth!
Politico converted?
If you can't beat them, join them they say, and, Quepem MLA, Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar, is hoping to do just that, it seems. The people of Quittol-Betul have kept him on his toes ever since he made public, at his former mentor, Luizinho Faleiro's prompting, his pet project of a 'Food Park' at the picturesque 'Quitol'. With the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) pulling the cat out of the bag and exposing that the park was a meer 'hospitality project in disguise' the dimunitive legislator had no option but bow to the protesting villagers wishes and watered down the infamous 'Food Park' to a mere 'mini industrial estate' now.
In neighbouring Quepem town however, Babu isn't willing to carry on with his 'bad guy' image anymore. Here, he turns a staunch green and joins protesters who are up in arms against the menace of ore transportation. "No more mining trucks in Quepem town" he thundered last week.
Is that one of the 40 converted? We aren't sure.
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