However, a useful mentor, T helped me through my first real interview. This got off to a bad start when, after biking it through sheets of rain, we knocked on the door — only to be greeted with the merest slither of a gap with a voice behind it. I could almost smell the fear as the middle-aged housewife exclaimed 'naka, naka', as T tried to negotiate us into the flat. Her son, a bright student looking for entrance into engineering college, had come up against a wall of resistance — communal motivations were suspected.
Eventually, after agreeing to keep the article as vague as possible, she succumbed and we entered the flat. Once in, hot chai and samosas were thrust upon us as we sat on the main (and only) sofa in a clean and basic flat. Seems like hospitality begins at the sacred entrance — perhaps the reason why were kept out for so long. Antagonism and Indian snacks don't sit that comfortably together.
Well, for my first time, all seems to be going well. However, looking down as I rapidly scribble, I start to notice a puddle emerging around me on the stone floor. Early on in the rains and I haven't yet made the connection between downpours and sandals. The puddle grows and I feel like my shoes are slowly turning into the source of the Mandovi. I have little option other than to come clean. What followed was an episode with me apologising, receiving a maternal smile and a towel and a level of empathy I'm not sure could have been reached any other way. As it happened, the article created few ripples and the power of the press didn't have quite the force the lady had anticipated.
My confidence grew, and, as the rainy season drew on, I ventured out more and more.
Towards the end of August, the rains finally showed signs of letting up. However there was talk in the market place — the fish didn't return. At street level housewives were struggling to find the plump shimmering mackerals with which they normally populated their spicy yellow curries. In the areas surrounding the big resorts, blame was laid on the proliferation of hotels with their ever-growing need for the freshest produce. Out at sea, traditional fishermen blamed the trawlers. The National Institute of Oceanography, which is responsible for monitoring the seas, observed from the fence. Whatever the cause, changes were afoot on this rural coastal land — the once abundance of resources strained as it's popularity started to mushroom.
As the clouds melted away for good, shacks started to spring up like primroses in May. The hoteliers grumbled — their 'multi-cuisine' menus just weren't being read. Politicians took sides with either faction. Some framing the fight in favour of the shack-owning under-dogs, others pointing to their lack of civic responsibility with their spliced electricity wires and overflowing rubbish out of the backs of the flimsy beach side establishments.
On the backs of the tourists and travellers flocking to Goa came the stories of the parties, drug deaths, Anjuna hot-spots that managed openly flout local licences and throb on till the early hours of the morning. Crime also increased — the mugging of tourists, either on desolate stretches of beach or in their insecure dwellings, became more and more widespread. The hotels brought problems of their own. This being a time of huge growth, water was sapped up beyond the limits of the local ecology and the coastal regulation zone (the area demarcated on the beach up to where the hotels could be built) was debated and apparently ignored in many instances.
The international ramifications of a sordid paedophile ring is exposed, following the conviction of Freddy Peats, a German national involved in the abuse and traffic of Goa's under-age. As the grim facts unfold, including naive support by the Catholic church, the society looks on in repugnance, wanting to distance itself from such heinous activities. Once again, Goa's flirtation with other cultures in a bid to make the most of its picturesque rural ideal is put into question.
One of the major benefits of such a small team bringing out fortnightly publication is that we had the opportunity to experience each of the many ingredients that make up a well-rounded news magazine.
Towards Christmas, to lighten the load of the heavy political wrangling, I took to the fields. The paddy fields that is. As a Goan urban dweller, I am familiar with the white side of rice — as it appears in all its culinary simplicity and elegance on the plate. I am however completely ignorant of the involved process of getting to that stage. An 'expose' on the inner workings of the paddy harvest — the cutting, thrashing, pounding and milling — gives me the chance to wade through the paddy, chase frogs, and be generally mocked by good-tempered field workers. Not quite sure if this is in the general job descriptions of most journalism openings.