Goa Diary

Turns out Power Minister Wilfred Mesquita could not stomach the fact of the lights being installed by Urban Development Minister John Manuel Vaz. So recently when he got stuck in a traffic jam, he did the obvious — switched off electricity supply to the lights! Of course it helped Mesquita’s case that the traffic lights needed three cops to control the jammed traffic while the old manual system required just two.

Food hype

For all its hype about tourists friendliness Goa can get quite inconvenient at times. At a much-hyped food festival at Colva beach near Margao town recently, visitors were treated to some really awful food at outrageous prices. On the concluding evening, election speeches by localpoliticians who sponsored the festival, pushed the local bands off stage. Visitors who waited till the conclusion of the festival at midnight were left stranded as the bus services connecting Margao to other towns had long stopped plying.

Not surprisingly local villagers far outnumbered tourists in a festival which in reality was an opportunity for some ruling party supporters to make money.

Paper Tigers

Long years in the political wilderness has caused the Bharatiya Janata Party to be wary of paper tigers! BJP general secretary Venkaiah Naidu who was in Goa recently recounted to party workers his days as a member of the erstwhile Jan Sangh, BJP’s previous avtaar.

Totally out of reckoning in the political scene, the Sanghis had to rest content with seeing the party leadership’s names in print occasionally. “Since we were not important enough to have our names published everyday, we used to cherish the few clippings we had reading them over and over again, Naidu said.”