MALLAN KURIEN
House hunting in Goa is a mental Olympiad, in which one determines the budget, purpose, location, connectivity, access, rental value and return on investment.
Through this haze of driving around Goa, looking for that perfect home, one usually forgets two key aspects to add to the check list – air quality and ambient noise. What I like to call the ‘soft valuation’ of property, that determines the quality of life, peace of mind, and good mental and physical health. I landed in Taleigao, now considered to be a suburb of Panaji city, even though it has its own Panchayat and a MLA. Due to a rapidly increasing urban sprawl, my house comes under multiple jurisdictions; the post office is Caranzalem, the Panchayat is Taleigao, the electricity department bills me under Dona Paula, the water department is Tiswadi, and my locality is called Oitiant (a hillside validated only in old land deeds); the rest call us Panaji.
I later found out that, of the lot, the most prestigious address to use is Dona Paula, which apparently denotes ‘high living’, exclusivity and the ‘Raj Bhavan area’, with a list of residents from the `who’s who’ of Goa’s movers and shakers.
When I dictate my address to a courier or supplier, there’s a sudden hush, as the realisation sinks and in that my house is hallowed VIP ground (the Chief Minister lives adjacently but quietly). Eventually I got fed up of this entitled address and now use it to the bare minimum, providing low brow landmarks such as the Shiv Mandir and the water tank tower. Taleigao’s urban sprawl allows for paupers and kings to live side by side, so one can easily stay under the radar if one chooses to.
While my “palace” was being made ready to move into, I rented a place at Assagao-Siolim, in a gated complex with pool, manicured gardens and facilities. The staff ensured to keep the property and its frontage clean and clear.
On the second night, a domestic terror attack obliterated our little Goan paradise.
POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
At midnight, a loudspeaker began shrieking over the rooftops; we were jarred awake with this awful sound; it sounded almost exactly like the mobs who rioted in Mumbai and tore apart the city’s social fabric for all time, the exact moment when cosmopolitan Bombay was destroyed and ghetto Mumbai was born. Having experienced the pogrom first hand, I was shocked that this was happening in Goa; quickly gathering my wits I went to investigate and found to my utter relief that it was nothing but a religious “tradition” being played out, – with a loudspeaker upgrade. But wait, under this beautiful, serene Goan Moon? Impossible. These couldn’t possibly be Goans?
The night further revealed two communities competing for favour from the God of Decibels. One would assume the whole of Siolim was awake, except for the drunk and the doped out. Naturally, the masters of ceremonies and their cohorts were otherwise unemployed, not having to wake up in the mornings for productive work or adult responsibilities. The God of Decibels was finally appeased at 3:30am and we all tried going back to sleep.
In the morning, when I went to check out these heavenly Discos, to see what they looked like in the Goan sun (which always puts things in the right perspective), I found litter strewn everywhere; broken beer bottles, plastic food packets, vomit, needles, cigarette stubs, urine soaked walls and a cow feeding off garbage. This midnight worship and ritual continued for three weeks straight, and then restarted again every ten days or so.
Five months later, I moved out to Dona Paula and immediately got to work with a sense of desperation and urgency, knowing how quickly death would take our door; I made myself familiar with the Taleigao Panchayat, met with the MLA, met key influencers and began a petition for proper waste management, made proposals to builders for inclusive infrastructure and collaborative initiatives for mutual benefit, such as reducing noise and air pollution, improving pedestrian safety, installing a bio gas plant and decommissioning garbage dumps; sweepers were employed to clean and clear the area of plastic waste, litter, construction debris and animal carcasses. Trees and creepers were sprung and primed.
My Holy War had begun…
