-Brian Mendonça
Roll out the barrel
We'll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel,
We've got the blues on the run
Zing boom tararrel
Sing out a song of good cheer;
Now's the time to roll the barrel
Cause the gang's all here.
-The Andrews Sisters (1956)
The end of the year is upon us. One more year goes by. As
Christmas season segues into New Year, Goa is inundated. All some can do is
live life to the hilt between 24th and 31st.
It is a time for thankfulness, for the gift of life for
having seen another year -- for meeting new friends, for seeing life in new
perspectives, for pushing old limits and discovering new ones. There were
moments when we saw a side of ourselves which we did not know existed. Was it
all worthwhile? -- For life is fleeting and the chairs which yawn in the living
room will find others to seat when the call comes.
One chair has been empty since 16 December. By 29 December
2012 it was clear Jyoti Singh Pandey (23) would not come home. She had died after being
raped and murdered by 6 in a moving bus in Delhi. Earlier this week the Supreme
Court has dismissed the plea to withhold the juvenile convicted of the crime.
The law sometimes goes overboard to protect those it should be prosecuting. In
a day and age when the safety of women is increasingly endangered, more so in
Goa, this verdict has soured the year-end when it should have been an open and
shut case.
Leslie Udwin, maker of India’s
Daughter – a BBC film spurred by the Nirbhaya incident -- has said that in
the case of the juvenile, society was more to blame than him, i.e. people go into
adulthood with the prejudices of their parents, with memories of husbands
beating their wives or being abused by their fathers, uncles or neighbors. ‘What
my film says is that it’s not these men (rapists) who are rotten apples in the
barrel. It’s the barrel that is rotten.’ By this reasoning the act should be
condoned as India has millions of people who are from impoverished backgrounds.
The
much awaited 20 December came and went. Some Goans are still in shock after the
ISL score that evening. What happened that evening in the stadium was
unprecedented. As a host state Goa could have been more sporting. To me it
looked like an even fight with anybody’s game. My takeaway is this – We do not
take defeat in a sporting manner. We have got to win no matter what. We don’t
mind being portrayed as spoilsports to the world just because we did not have
it our way. The rampant disregard for traffic rules by football fanatics in Goa
on match day has to be seen to be believed. They are a law unto themselves.
Roll out the barrel
We'll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel,
We've got the blues on the run
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*newindianexpress.com; Published in the weekly feature 'On my mind' in Gomantak Times, Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on Sunday, 27 December 2015. Pix of invitation to an exhibition of paintings by N. Swarnalatha on 19 May 2013, courtesy IHC, Delhi, 2013.
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