What a fall there was my countrymen!
By George Menezes

There was a whole load of things about Goa and Goans that I wanted to write when suddenly out of nowhere the sleaze exposure in the Armed Forces hit me like one of our desi-made misguided missile.

All thoughts on Goa are on hold till this poor ex Squadron Leader of the Indian Air Force can understand the impact of what Saddam would have called "the mother of all scams".

It is not possible, I said to myself. Here was one of the finest Armed Forces in the world performing like a strip-tease artiste in a sleazy joint in downtown Paris. Being watched by the whole world as every single garment was taken off in slow motion leaving ministers, generals, brigadiers, senior bureaucrats and party office-bearers with their pants down. Some of them with their saris up, so to say.
Caught in flagrante delicto with their boots on. What a blow for all serving ranks and officers. And those like me well over two score years and ten who still stand up and salute when we hear a senior officer at the other end of the telephone line.
Somebody must quickly arrange a funeral service for the untimely and shocking death of everything we most revered. Integrity, discipline, patriotism, valour and decency.

A massive reversal of arms, heads bent at just the sorrowful angle, the last post playing for the mangled body of the last Indian institution that held out hope that this beloved country of mine would rise from the ashes of our dead selves to higher things. Some day, some time.

Should we be shocked after the first video clips have been seen and the mourners have gone home after a drink to their comfortable beds? Has it not been coming? Have we not seen the signs?

The parched throat, the glazed eyes, the slow responses, the stench resulting from incontinence. Like a loved parent a nation dying before your very eyes.
Search if you like. For me the source of the cancer is the " Political Party". An institution that is not able to survive on donations given honestly for an ideology, for a manifesto or as a reward for good governance.

So it feeds on the immune systems of those who are not willing to stand in a queue, who have permissions to get and licenses to obtain and projects and products to be approved all outside the law, all at a cost, behind closed doors under the table.

This is the institution that bleeds the prostitutes of business through the pimps of ministers, bureaucrats and party treasurers. And now alas, Armed Forces officers as well. Oh what a fall there has been my countrymen!

Then you and I and all of us fell down and bloody shame flowed over us. But not all of us. For the government hangs on, its dirty knickers showing and we shall keep cursing and yet voting those same parties to power since all parties have no other creative idea than to buy its way to power.

When I first saw the tapes I had the same question that most of you were asking. If two young journalists can break the security cordon of our VIPs because they have a product to sell and the willingness to pay, how much easier it would have been for a professional group like the ISI.

Finally I am leaving below a blank black-bordered space as an obituary for those of our cherished values that in the last many years have been murdered in cold blood by those who are expected to uphold our Constitution.

I request the readers of Goa Today to fill in the space. In the meanwhile, I am going to take a long walk to look for a bottle of Blue Label Scotch whisky. For someone who only drinks urrak the suspense is killing.