Palolem - The Unsettling Crown

Palolem - The Unsettling Crown

Palolem Beach: The Unsettling Crown

By Tony Martin (tonymartin66@yahoo.com)

A crescent shaped bay lined with swaying coconut palms hemmed by a pair of rocky crags, Palolem beach is picture perfect. However the perfection ends right there and the place seems heading for all types of trouble. The once-romantic Palolem beach, which is easily the uncrowned queen of Goa’s celebrated beaches, has seen an incredible transformation over the years since its discovery by backpackers in the mid eighties.
Palolem then was a warm haven away from the cares and cold shoulder of an indifferent world and offered the perfect sanctuary of delicious anonymity to long-haired drug zombies. Today globalisation, liberalization and all the rest of the new mantras of a callous civilisation has not only altered the coastal landscape almost beyond recognition but has nibbled at the family life here.
All the rhetoric about how tourism has blessed Palolem is fine as long as you are only counting the rupees that flow in. The depressing part is largely swept under the carpet along with all the filth that litters this once serene coastal stretch.
Tourism has indeed drastically changed the standard of living of the people here for better but there are a few avoidable things about this beach that need the urgent attention of people in authority if they care for a place and its people headed fast from boom to doom. One is nudism. Mr Fernandes, a local, says, “It is difficult to take parents and children to the beach without squirming in embarrassment at the naked flesh lying on the beach.”
The Goa police could start by politely telling the foreigners that this is not a nudist colony and that it is against the law. But politeness and Goa Police are total strangers. And the only people, other than domestic tourists, who seem to be taking the titillating scenes happily are the cops. Hence any attempt to check nudism on beaches is likely to upset the cops more than the tourists.
Two: Drugs freely flow. An elderly man, responding on how it feels now that Palolem is a star village on the tourist map of the world, prefers to tread cautiously. “If it will not mean serious trouble or even endless trips to the court, I would like to say a few things.” And he starts shooting even without bothering to wait for my denial or confirmation of his apprehensions, “there are now hundreds of shacks, shops, bars and restaurants, hotels and small accommodations and drugs are often part of their menu, surreptitiously of course, but it is an open secret. “No names please, I want to close the innings of my eventful life peacefully,” he adds quickly.
And last but most importantly, shattered family life. Perhaps Palolem best exemplifies the paradox of our time in history when we can spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses but little of family life, more conveniences, but less time.
Most of the parents there have money but family life has taken a beating. Says a mother of three children: “If progress relates to the acquisition of wealth we have improved, but if it has something to do with character and values we are regressing.”
In Palolem the government machinery is also non-functional as can be seen from the illegal constructions cropping up here like mushrooms in monsoon. The general attitude is anything goes as long as it pays. Without exaggeration the first words foreigners learn here are chalta hai.
Weeding out the irritants from picture-perfect Palolem could indeed help promote it as the ultimate 365 days tourist destination. But far from improving, things can stop going from bad to worse only when somebody or something wakes our cops from their infamous slumber and incompetence and we start sending unprincipled and shameless politicians to the oblivion of the desserts of Siberia.

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