The six year old twins waiting eagerly on the steps of the hotel room the return of their parents who have been out on the beach since morning could tear anybody’s heart in anguish. For, their parents got drowned in the morning in the waters of Mandovi river on Miramar beach. The children don’t know this and are waiting on the door steps wondering why their parents are out so long.
The couple, along with a few of their friends staying in the same hotel had gone for a early morning stroll on the beach. The gentle breeze with white surf of the waves were too tempting for them to dip into the water. They were warned by the hotel staff that the waters were dangerous for swimming, but for them, it seemed an absurd warning. For the water looked so gentle and the beach too shallow. The warnings of the dangers appeared far fetched, and the lure of the beach over powering.
Yet, one current of water drew them towards the sea and engulfed them into its womb. By then it was too late. The power of the sea was experienced by them. There was no coming back. And they passed away leaving behind two young six year old twins in their hotel rooms.
The moment you hear this news, you can feel the heart being torn apart with bile in your mouth and your feet giving away under you. The tiny twins have been cheated by their parents, you feel. The children don’t deserve this, you feel. A strange anger starts to creep up your veins. It goes through your blood stream and rises on to your face and you get furious at the parents. You wish you were able to catch the parents by their necks and knock some sense into their heads for leaving the children orphaned for no reason.
The children certainly don’t deserve this.
And then the helplessness slowly overcomes this anger and creeps down from your head and settles into your heart. And it stays there.
Helplessness because you can’t change anything. Helplessness that you don’t know the unfortunate couple. Helplessness because you don’t know what will happen to the children next.
You feel helpless because you are powerless and can’t bring the parents back to the children. You feel helpless because you can’t go and hug the children because they are strangers to you and you to them.
And despair takes over soon afterwards because you know such incidents will happen again. And despair because no amount of raised voices from you are going to change the situation. Despair because for the State of Goa, these deaths are just another couple of numbers into their statistics. An unknown official somewhere in the deep recesses of the Government machinery will add two more strokes into a dusty file.
Who is to blame for these deaths? The parents themselves? For not heeding to the warning given by the hotel staff? The Life Guards? For not being on the site when the tragedy occurred?
Or the water? No. You can’t blame the water. The water was being what it is supposed to be. The water is the all powerful organism of nature and it was behaving as per the properties that have been attributed to it. It has tide. It flows into the sea and it has been doing that for ages. It will never change and nobody can change it.
Yet, deep down in your heart you feel that this tragedy could have been averted. You wish this tragedy had been averted. And you feel frustrated that it was not averted. You want to blame someone and you blame the Government. You feel the Government must have done something to avert this tragedy.
Posting life guards seems the obvious solution. Yet, posting life guards has not brought drowning deaths to zero. People have died of drowning even on beaches where life guards have been posted.
This calls for a very objective view on the whole issue.
Let us consider the State. For the State, beach tourism is a major industry. The State gets revenue from beach tourism. For any industry to be a sustainable one, the first aspect that is looked into is the plugging of losses through bad publicity. Drowning deaths can bring a lot of bad publicity to the tourism industry. And the first and easiest step taken is to stop casting figures of the number of drowning deaths. Hide the figures, don’t disclose them, so nobody’s wiser and the industry flourishes like before.
Yet, we have to realize that drowning deaths are human deaths. Human beings are dying. Each death is the death of one person. One person of the family. It may be your spouse, your parent or your child. Losing your child is a big loss to you. No statistics can minimize this loss for you. If your child dies, it is dead one hundred percent. No statistic can curb this loss nor can it minimize your grief. You don’t feel ten percent sad. There are no fractions in death.
The State for once must become more human. It must not hide behind the false veil of statistics. Like all industrial establishments, the State too has a moral responsibility to the people. It is the moral responsibility of the State Tourism industry to work out a policy decision to put an end tp drowning deaths on the beaches of Goa.
It may need to do so through education or it may need to do so through legislation. For the tourist, he has the excuse of never having seen so much water before. For a city-dweller in the land locked cities, a first visit to the beaches of Goa provides a pleasant shock on seeing the massive expanse of water. He does not know of the rip currents or the rib currents or the tide. But the State does.
For the State, the beaches are its bread and butter and it has known the beaches and its power for ages. Hence it is the prerogative of the State to educate the tourist.
The State must develop an education policy to be implemented through its stake holders in the hotel industry to impart this knowledge of the dangers of the sea. The State has enough intelligentsia in its rank to draw out such policies. It only needs to be a bit less stringent on making such appointments of the planners as political appointees.
We must admit that the head of every State tourism sector related industry stake holder is a political appointee. The selection of the head of the policy makers has always been on the merits of recommendation than on merits of competence. The most competent officials are present in some moth ridden department gathering dust while the industry suffers. The State needs to realize this and flick the dust off its sleeves and bring out planners who can make policies to stop drowning deaths.
The consequences of the failure of the State to stop drowning deaths are apparent. One fine day the Judiciary will step in. And when the Judiciary steps in, it can have disastrous consequences on the industry. For when the Judiciary steps in, all the skeletons in those dusty files of statistics of drowning deaths will come out in the open.
These figures will drive away tourists from Goa’s beaches in numbers that will far bypass the number of tourists put off by terrorist attacks.
The couple, along with a few of their friends staying in the same hotel had gone for a early morning stroll on the beach. The gentle breeze with white surf of the waves were too tempting for them to dip into the water. They were warned by the hotel staff that the waters were dangerous for swimming, but for them, it seemed an absurd warning. For the water looked so gentle and the beach too shallow. The warnings of the dangers appeared far fetched, and the lure of the beach over powering.
Yet, one current of water drew them towards the sea and engulfed them into its womb. By then it was too late. The power of the sea was experienced by them. There was no coming back. And they passed away leaving behind two young six year old twins in their hotel rooms.
The moment you hear this news, you can feel the heart being torn apart with bile in your mouth and your feet giving away under you. The tiny twins have been cheated by their parents, you feel. The children don’t deserve this, you feel. A strange anger starts to creep up your veins. It goes through your blood stream and rises on to your face and you get furious at the parents. You wish you were able to catch the parents by their necks and knock some sense into their heads for leaving the children orphaned for no reason.
The children certainly don’t deserve this.
And then the helplessness slowly overcomes this anger and creeps down from your head and settles into your heart. And it stays there.
Helplessness because you can’t change anything. Helplessness that you don’t know the unfortunate couple. Helplessness because you don’t know what will happen to the children next.
You feel helpless because you are powerless and can’t bring the parents back to the children. You feel helpless because you can’t go and hug the children because they are strangers to you and you to them.
And despair takes over soon afterwards because you know such incidents will happen again. And despair because no amount of raised voices from you are going to change the situation. Despair because for the State of Goa, these deaths are just another couple of numbers into their statistics. An unknown official somewhere in the deep recesses of the Government machinery will add two more strokes into a dusty file.
Who is to blame for these deaths? The parents themselves? For not heeding to the warning given by the hotel staff? The Life Guards? For not being on the site when the tragedy occurred?
Or the water? No. You can’t blame the water. The water was being what it is supposed to be. The water is the all powerful organism of nature and it was behaving as per the properties that have been attributed to it. It has tide. It flows into the sea and it has been doing that for ages. It will never change and nobody can change it.
Yet, deep down in your heart you feel that this tragedy could have been averted. You wish this tragedy had been averted. And you feel frustrated that it was not averted. You want to blame someone and you blame the Government. You feel the Government must have done something to avert this tragedy.
Posting life guards seems the obvious solution. Yet, posting life guards has not brought drowning deaths to zero. People have died of drowning even on beaches where life guards have been posted.
This calls for a very objective view on the whole issue.
Let us consider the State. For the State, beach tourism is a major industry. The State gets revenue from beach tourism. For any industry to be a sustainable one, the first aspect that is looked into is the plugging of losses through bad publicity. Drowning deaths can bring a lot of bad publicity to the tourism industry. And the first and easiest step taken is to stop casting figures of the number of drowning deaths. Hide the figures, don’t disclose them, so nobody’s wiser and the industry flourishes like before.
Yet, we have to realize that drowning deaths are human deaths. Human beings are dying. Each death is the death of one person. One person of the family. It may be your spouse, your parent or your child. Losing your child is a big loss to you. No statistics can minimize this loss for you. If your child dies, it is dead one hundred percent. No statistic can curb this loss nor can it minimize your grief. You don’t feel ten percent sad. There are no fractions in death.
The State for once must become more human. It must not hide behind the false veil of statistics. Like all industrial establishments, the State too has a moral responsibility to the people. It is the moral responsibility of the State Tourism industry to work out a policy decision to put an end tp drowning deaths on the beaches of Goa.
It may need to do so through education or it may need to do so through legislation. For the tourist, he has the excuse of never having seen so much water before. For a city-dweller in the land locked cities, a first visit to the beaches of Goa provides a pleasant shock on seeing the massive expanse of water. He does not know of the rip currents or the rib currents or the tide. But the State does.
For the State, the beaches are its bread and butter and it has known the beaches and its power for ages. Hence it is the prerogative of the State to educate the tourist.
The State must develop an education policy to be implemented through its stake holders in the hotel industry to impart this knowledge of the dangers of the sea. The State has enough intelligentsia in its rank to draw out such policies. It only needs to be a bit less stringent on making such appointments of the planners as political appointees.
We must admit that the head of every State tourism sector related industry stake holder is a political appointee. The selection of the head of the policy makers has always been on the merits of recommendation than on merits of competence. The most competent officials are present in some moth ridden department gathering dust while the industry suffers. The State needs to realize this and flick the dust off its sleeves and bring out planners who can make policies to stop drowning deaths.
The consequences of the failure of the State to stop drowning deaths are apparent. One fine day the Judiciary will step in. And when the Judiciary steps in, it can have disastrous consequences on the industry. For when the Judiciary steps in, all the skeletons in those dusty files of statistics of drowning deaths will come out in the open.
These figures will drive away tourists from Goa’s beaches in numbers that will far bypass the number of tourists put off by terrorist attacks.
We cant blame anyone but ourselves. We bring kids into this world, but forget our liabilites to the kids.This is a pure case of negligience. Why blame Govt.? The hotel staff warned them, and I'm sure the life guards also must have done so. But they are confident (rather over confident) about themselves.
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