A sight among others

Lying on the floor blowing bubbles at the ceiling
Watching them break into me
The sight of dark glass
The chill on the floor that night
A girl too old for her dress
The purple bouncing off the chair ..
The sight of clouds and the weight of them bearing down,upside down
The fragance of fresh earth newly bathed ..
Mist and sun slowly swirl

Hold it right there fella !

Well in my recent travels and interactions with people in and outside the state I have come across some very warped perceiptions of goan women .. especially young goan women.
Just because we are passionate about life and live with no regrets doesnt mean we have no morals or boundaries , we may give into the moment and not look back but that doesn't make us any less respectful than the next ...
You may not be used to women this free and alive but that doesn't take anything away from us or our dignity ..
We are probably the most caring, talented and charming creatures you've come across in and while that may intimidate you , that has nothing to do with who we are ... so open your minds a little you'll be amazed at what life throws your way then ..

And then the glitter faded

So my idealistic bubble has burst .. attribute it to what you may 'the ugly truth' or whatever you want .
This isn't about love or the lack of it ,those illusions have long been dispelled (my youthful cynicism, isn't it just infectious?)
Well I've another one of those epiphanies, moments in life where reality slaps you in the face and the underbelly that lays hidden behind rose tainted reality lays open to be viewed.
The grinding poverty, the heights of frivolity, rampant corruption, the vague glimpses of hope that get us jumping for more ..
The question to be asked is are we not the ones in control of what goes on , I mean apparently this is a democracy so why don't we make changes.
See now that's the really upsetting is that people have gotten so comfortable in the chaos that surrounds them , it takes too much time and effort to try and alleviate someone Else's pain, to care about what surrounds you , We search for the easy way out of each situation. Garbage flung out of the windows onto the road, leave your taps running , I mean we have worked for it who gets to tell us how to use it ?
There is almost no sense of civic responsibility left.
We won't get off our high horses and do something. Why , well because someone else will do it , its not our job to care. Well now that 'Someone Else' is done being taken for granted.
Our feilds are dying, the weather is getting worse, food prices rising, garbage increasing. We deserve better we all know that yet we aren't willing to change the way our economy works .. we aren't willing to take the green way out .. we aren't willing to fight a collective battle .. we aren't even willing to do our own little part...If everyone just paid attention to the hundred feet around them there would probably be a day we could look forward to ,a change we could look forward to.
For one of the fastest rising economies this country sure doesn't look it and when you travel to poorer countries with better infrastructure you wonder .. if they can , then why cant we ?
The lack of motivation to do something for someone other than yourself , greed , desire to overlook others in effort to get your big break... it all just adds up .
I guess at the end of the day everyone just wants their own luxury and are unwilling to look at the bigger picture because its futile sometimes there are sacrifices to be made and there isn't anyone to do.
I applaud all those who committ themselves to the betterment of society, sometimes even putting themselves on the line ...and those that still believe in the Utopian dream and work for it .. I one day hope to join the ranks of these ..

Is Goa losing its culture?

A few thousands of years ago the earth was populated by nothing other than dinosaurs and foliage,but today the very existence of the dinosaurs seems surreal. The dinosaurs just vanished into thin air, wiped out.

Some opine that Goa and Goans in the same way are being wiped out , or rather is losing its culture, some even go to the extent of saying that we have long forgotten our culture and have no true identity but to ape the rulers that held us captive for so many years.An example shows itself clearly in the attendance of the ‘Semana da Cultural Portuguesa’as opposed to the attendance and enthusiasm seen toward the same program been held to celebrate the regions culture , the difference between both is far from marginal.

A question that is raised often is what really is Goan culture?Fados and spanish guitars or a tiatr? It is well and good that Goa encompasses many different cultures but what we are in fact forgetting is that we existed before the Portuguese , and before they came here we did have a very distinct culture as you can read of in books like “The Saraswats”or look up the Kadamba’s the rulers of goa before the Portuguese. Why don’t most educated goan youth speak konkani fluently ,why would we rather patronise a foreign film as opposed to a regional film, why do we look outward to define ourselves? Culture is something that is innate ,not something you eminate.If something does not come from you , you can never contain hence it has the potential to be lost. The rise of the goan economy has brought many ‘outsiders ’into the state and has slowly led to the intergration of Goa with the rest of India , some consider this as losing of culture ,that is far from true though.Intergration with the rest of India will serve to widen our horizons, this may have its downsides but losing a culture is not one of them.

Rather than losing our culture its is being diluted by the presence of other cultures , but that does not mean it has been wiped out , that merely means that those who deem they possess this culture need to hold true to it. Just because the things around are changing that does not mean that we have lost the goan identity thats just means we need to reaffirm it. Time changes many things as holds good with culture as well, we can not say that we are losing our culture , its merely being redefined.

[This is an essay that had been submitted for some competition a while ago]