My last trip to Goa.

We were 10 people and 3 cars. We left for Goa on 26th Jan at 3am. We were all excited about the trip hoping to recreate the joy of the last trip. It was all fine till the Saturday evening. Till then everyone was in their own little world, sleeping by the beach, drinking their share of beer.

At 4pm we 6 of us left to Candolim beach from Baga. (It seems it is a foreigner’s beach). We went up to the hotel on the beach side and asked for a shack. There were all guys and girls naked sleeping on the shacks and we were actually, for once, oblivious to the extent of nudity. As the Indian mentality goes, one of our friends was negotiating about the cost of the beer when a foreigner came up to us and started staring. He did not say a word and we had no idea what he was doing. All we knew was he was 6ft 2 inches tall and about 100kgs heavy. After a few seconds we asked him what the problem was. "You are too loud. Try to keep it low", he said in a threatening tone. We kept our calm and sent him off. Then this waiter from the hotel came up to us and refused to give us the shack or serve us beer. Initially we did not understand what was going on. Then it was all clear - it was about money. He wanted the foreigner there and thought that we had picked up a fight with him. We tried to explain to him that we are there to just relax and be by ourselves and are going to pay for what we eat and use. But he was adamant on not being associated with us. So we started leaving. On the way back my friend gave a long stare to the foreigner. The foreigner said something and my friend walked up to him and asked – Sorry, could not hear you. The foreigner said - I said keep walking. The arrogance in his face pissed all of us off. At the end of the day he is a tourist and has to know that he does not own the place to dictate terms. We refused to move. There were a few swear words exchanged and the foreigner punched my friend in the face and he was bleeding. The waiter came to the rescue - of the foreigner. We had no one to support us. We decided to call the police. And we went to the hotel and asked for the police number. He refused to give us the number. So we had to walk about 300 mts outside the beach to get the phone number and call the police. We did. The police said that they would be in Candolim beach in 5 minutes. 5 minutes turned to 20 and we called again. By this time the Shack owner had fled the foreigner away safely. We tried to follow him but he got into the jeep and raced away. We could not note the jeep number. When we called the police the second time they said they had already sent a jeep and it should be there any moment. So we waited. We waited for 2 hrs. No one turned up. Then we called up again. This time they said - We cannot do anything in the beach. You will have to come to the station to lodge a complaint. By now the waiter had also fled. What did we have? - No trace of the foreigner, just the name of the waiter and no police. Hoping to take things to completion we went to the police station to lodge a complaint. We got the police to the place of the incident and had him spoken to the owner of the shack. We explicitly told the police that the owner of the shack had refused to give us the police number and that was - by law - a crime. But our request went unnoticed as he continued speaking in konkani to the shack owner. That shack owner said that he had no connection with the waiter and did not know who he was. There was no further investigation. Then we went back to the police station where the 2star officer tell us - Tell us how do we find that foreigner. We need some trace. We don’t have anything. Something can be done if you stay back in Goa. We don’t know how long that will be. We can’t even assure you that he will get caught.

We asked the police if it was an option that they coordinate with the Bangalore police and we will do the needful from Bangalore.The officer thought that the idea was ridiculous.

Our hearts sank. We had nothing with us. Our country people were not with us. All for a white skin and a few dollars. All we could think of was - This happened 450 years back when British came to India. Because of and with our support they started ruling us. And after 400 years of struggle and regaining freedom, what did we learn? Nothing? To go to the press we do not have sufficient evidence. The police come to us and first thing they ask is - Tumne kya kiya? (What did you do?) The investigation would begin with an assumption that we are at fault.

This left us with a lot of questions unanswered. Were we wrong in retaliating? Are Indians not allowed in a foreigner s beach? Why don’t they put up – Indians and dogs not allowed beyond this point. Is this the state of the police in India? If no foreigner committing a crime can be caught in Goa, then why do we need police there? In 2 days 10 of us spent Rs. 40,000 in Goa. Does that have any value to them? Why would Goans think of us as lesser than the white skin? If nudity is illegal in India, then how is Candolim beach exempted of this law? Isn’t assault equal to half murder? Does it hold no importance? How can the government have no concern for Indians being treated differently in their own country? Is this not racism? And many many more.

But one thing for sure. Goa seems like a foreign land to me. I don’t find the people as ours. And that to me is a huge loss.

Shivajinagar Voilence

Is there a need for Jaffer Sheriff to have organized a protest (Shivajinagar Voilence) like this? Was he trying to take up some case to the Indian government? He could simply use the press to convey what he wanted to. And now all this has turned into communal voilence! Could he not forsee the communal voilence erupting? Or is that what he wanted? God knows when Indians would take pride of their communal co-existence than to push eachother towards extinction.

Tarka - the logic

This was Sunil Kumar Desai's debut movie.
There are a lot of facets to this movie. I shall take one by one.

The movie starts of with a ShankarNag running out of jail and the cops chasing him. SN accidentally runs into the house of the guy (DevRaj) who had raped his girlfriend and puts the blame on SN, who is jailed for the crime. This is a pure accident that he ends up hiding in DR's house. He kills DR, who is trying to kill his wife. The motive of killing is shown to be for the revenge he seeks than to save the lady. Having killed DR he conveniently plays into the game when DR's wife takes the blame for the murder. He agrees to help her dispose the body and clean up all the traces. His character is a man with a good heart caught up between helping his friend (DR's wife, who was his classmate in high school) for both his own mistake and playing a good friend, and saving himself from a life sentence.

The second side to the movie is the DR's character. He has played a mentally troubled guy who is suspicious of his wife. He cannot sleep with her because he thinks she has slept with someone else before marriage. The torture that his wife has to bear due to his sickness leaves you thinking. The sickness that SKD tries to show is simple and at some level is found in a lot of people around us - A girl getting married to a guy whom she barely knows and ends up in a mess because of the mental illness that the guy suffers.

The third side of the story is the friend of Vanita Vasu's (DR's wife) who is VV’s shoulder to cry on. He is a guy who has loved her for a long time but nicely transforms to being a friend. There is one dialogue in which he says - I don’t want to be the one who breaks your house. But if you really want the divorce then my sister can file the case for you. The maturity in the first part of the dialogue hits you on a moral level. DR happens to catch VV and him in his own house and threatens to kill him after he has killed his wife. He runs out of the house to call the police when he is hit by the police jeep chasing SN. ( Now you get the connection?). (Yes, Vanita vasu thinks it is her friend who killed DR and tries to take the blame for the murder).

The fourth side is VVs story. She is a girl who innocently gets married to DR and then realizes the mess she has landed into. She is scared to divorce DR because she think he would kill her if she does so. At one point she confides in her friend that she is still a virgin despite being married for so long. It is just the simplicity of the dialogue which catches your attention. She does not have the courage to kill DR but wishes that he is dead and that is the reason she is not hesitant before taking the blame for the murder. SKD leaves you thinking of whether she accepted the murder of her husband because she felt so good that he was dead and had always been wanting to but having been unable to kill him or to save his friend who tried to save her.

The fifth side of the story is of Avinash. He was needed only to complete the story. Otherwise his role was a bit disappointing. He is a cop who is a witness of the DR's body being disposed off and holds SN and Vanita Vasu at ransom.

You have to watch this movie for the story and the way it is told than the way it is shot. The poor lighting and the boring locations only tell you that the kannada industry had no money to make expensive movies but nonetheless had abundance of talent to narrate a story. SKD, good job!