October's Omen

OCTOBER came in stealthily and its advent was hardly noticed by anyone in Goa until Chief Minister Francisco Sardinha decided to take a break from his heavy routine of travelling to every nook and cranny of Goa, dishing out counsel to everyone, except his ministers. He flew Down Under, ostensibly, to welcome the "upper crust" tourists to Goa and the Australian entrepreneurs to set up business here.

Our chief minister hails from Curtorim, supposed to be the granary of South Goa or perhaps entire Goa, by virtue of its agricultural produce and hardworking people. If I am not mistaken, even the house in which he now lives in Curtorim, was originally built as a farmhouse. I do not know whether Sardinha owns paddy-fields. Perhaps he does because he hails from the landed gentry of the village of mando and music besides agriculture.

While Sardinha was enjoying Down Under, his coalition partners, the BJP, thought it was an opportune period to give him a little jolt or perhaps teach him a little bit of a lesson. Before he could return home, they prepared a little surprise for him, by forming their own government without his help. They were obviously hurt because after using them as a ladder to climb to power, he pretended that he could cast them away as useless crutches. He obviously felt that he had enough friends in his parent Congress party not only to provide a fattened calf on the prodigal's return but even to keep him reigning without the BJP's support.

Manohar Parrikar didn't miss the message. He decided to put a stop to Sardinha's pretensions or popularity by removing the ladder, which the BJP had provided him to climb up to power. So while Sardinha was drinking in the beauty of Australia and waxing eloquent on the business prospects in Goa, the BJP quietly and deftly removed the ladder. Let him jump down if he wishes and break his limbs in the bargain, they thought, for all the ill will he harboured about them.

But the Curtorkar is a smart kolo (fox), like the one in the unxel (sugarcane field) in Saligao. In the oft repeated tale of the kolo and the manguem (crocodile), the fox cajoled the croc and both stole themselves into the unxel beyond the river. Once the fox had his fill of the juicy cane, he itched to kui (let out a loud yell). He yelled in utter satisfaction. The villagers came and rained sticks on the crocodile, and left her for dead in a ditch. After the villagers had moved out, the fox quietly came to the croc and sympathised with her profusely. He had to humour her because the wide river was there to be crossed, to return home on the crocodile's back. She pretended to fall for his subtle persuasion. However, once upstream, the croc feigned that she felt like turning. While the fox frantically tried to control her, she did what she desired. The fox fell off her back and was carried away by the swift current.

A similar situation faced Curtorkar Sardinha and the latter was left to drift away with the tag: XIIth CM of Goa. While we had begun with farms—either paddy or sugarcane—we ended elsewhere. Sardinha ended where another former chief minister, Luizinho Navelkar, wished the Curtorkar would be, saying, "Aiz mhaka, faleam tuka" (Cada cao tem o seu Sao Martinho/Every dog has it's day).

It was only then that we suddenly woke up to the fact that we were already in October, a good eleven months since Sardinha had emerged as Goa's twelfth chief minister. And before we have reached the twelfth month of Y2K, we have the thirteenth CM, while all along we were under the impression that the Y2K was hitchless year.