Rant after the ‘rave’

An exception was made in the morning for a VIP entourage led by Congress leader Pramod Madhwaraj,who performed a “cleansing” puja on the island. “The obscene dances held here have desecrated the soil,” Madhwaraj explained to the local press,with two orange-clad pandits in tow. The neighbouring town of Udupi,home to a Krishna temple,is a popular pilgrimage spot. The island itself,famous for its columnar basaltic rock formations,is said to have been named after Saint Mary by Vasco da Gama,who,according to legend,first arrived here before proceeding to the coasts of Kerala.

On the uninhabited island,a mandap with a tiled roof—one of a few small permanent structures there—is strewn with flowers and bears a ceremonious kolam. The place,however,looks far from cleansed. Crows circle piles of half-burnt garbage that fill several shallow pits. Beer bottles,plastic,food,discarded shoes and cigarette butts litter the path that winds through the island.

“Not many people usually come to this island. On weekends,when there is rush,we make half-a-dozen trips a day,carrying 20-30 tourists per trip. During the festival,we saw thousands of people on the island for the first time,” says Keertan Kumar,a 17-year-old who operates a small boat with his friend. “There was a lot of drinking and dancing. The party was attended by foreigners. My friends and I sneaked in on the second day; we felt out of place,” he says.

In his first media interview after the festival,Girish Shetty,CEO of 3W Concepts,the company that organised Spring Zouk,told The Sunday Express that the event was a music festival and not a “party”. “Things did not go as planned. As organisers,we failed miserably. The generator was inadequate and there were problems with the sound system that caused unexpected delays on the first day. This resulted in some confusion,which may have angered the local media and political leaders who had been invited. I refuse to believe there was any indecency in dress or behaviour during the event,” he said. Over 30 hours of footage from eight CCTV cameras haven’t yielded any evidence of obscenity,he said,adding that the police are going through the material.

Yatish Baikampadi,CEO of a beach management company in Mangalore who arranged lifeguards for the festival,says the organisers were strict about dress and conduct and sent back skimpily clad tourists. “There was one case of indecent behaviour by a foreigner but he was put on a boat back to Malpe as soon as it came to light,” he says. The festival was the first big attempt to boost tourism in the area,Baikampadi says. “The so-called incriminating visuals shown on TV are not from the island at all. In one clip,there is an elephant in the background. How could anyone have brought an elephant to the island? The controversy is purely political,” he says.

A post-graduate student of Manipal University,who attended the event on the third day,said the performances by international artistes drew hundreds of students from across Karnataka. “It wasn’t a rave party or anything like that. People have got the wrong impression. You know what it is like when a crowd gathers on an island. Everyone is dressed in shorts and having a good time,which can be misinterpreted,” he said,not wanting to be named.

The festival wasn’t a “foreign” affair,Shetty insisted. “There were over 15 performances by folk artistes from across Karnataka and foreigners constituted only 20 per cent of the crowd,” he said. Tickets for the three-day event,sold online and through counters in Udupi,Mangalore and Bangalore,were priced at Rs 2,500 per head and were available at Rs 1,500 to students who produced college IDs. Approximately Rs 30-35 lakh was spent on the event,organised by 3W Concepts in association with two record companies,Looney Moon from Italy and Occulta from Bangalore. Permissions were sought from the MLA,Raghupati Bhat,who has since refused to be associated with the event.

Towards evening,Malpe beach begins to come alive: ice cream vendors and jet-ski operators hawk their wares to the rare tourist; children busy kite-fighting bump into one another; the sun finally dims as the waves get mightier.

“It is strange to see so much activity in Malpe,” says Praveen,a fisherman lounging by his blue boat. “We don’t usually make it to the newspapers,let alone TV channels.” The bad press has,however,resulted in a drop in the number of tourists since the festival,says a boat operator,declining to be named. “The island was very dirty. There were bushes everywhere and you couldn’t walk. When the organisers cleaned it up,we thought we could attract more tourists,but the reverse has happened,” says the Malpe resident. The festival,he estimates,drew a crowd of over 2,000.

“When an event like this happens in Kerala or Goa,it doesn’t raise eyebrows. The locals made good money from this festival,even if it wasn’t organised very well,” he concludes.