GOLDEN

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“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews 13:2

The insider versus outsider debate in Goa has always been around, with earlier settlers looking down on later settlers - and the migrant labourers being looked down upon by everyone.

I am part of a small Covid-19 Relief Volunteer Group in my village, Aldona in North Goa, that gets across basic provisions for the elderly and the needy in and around the village. Most locals have enough money, and all we are providing them are courier services. They pay for their provisions and medicines. We just source and deliver them.

It is the poor migrant labourers, living in makeshift accommodation, who are suffering the most. They need food. Every day. And we see this up close as our group provides food for hundreds of them in Aldona and in a neighbouring village.

But there is a section, a small section, of the Aldona populace who feel that we should not be helping these migrant labourers and that they should sent by the busload to their native states. This is not so easy to do. And while they are here they are our responsibility. Most of them are very decent human beings and would willingly work for food or money – if there is work available.

There isn’t.

I am saddened by my fellow Goans who feel we should only look after our own, and that we should let the ‘ghantis’ fend for themselves. What about humanity?

At the same time, another interesting aspect of the insider-outsider debate is also coming to the fore. In my volunteer group, as well as in many Goa centric volunteer groups outside Aldona, a huge percentage of the people volunteering their time, energy, expertise and resources are not Goan. The dreaded outsiders are the most enthusiastic volunteers, lending a helping hand to everyone regardless of their ethnicity or origin.

The outsider who has either settled in Goa, or is renting long term, has suddenly become the angel. And again I see this first-hand since I am involved. Young people from other states, well qualified and well paid, are going about enthusiastically identifying the needy and fulfilling their requirements. Sourcing provisions, delivering food, delivering medicine, networking for information etc. and bringing their considerable skill sets to the table.

In my own village group, nearly half the active volunteers are nouveau Goans, some of them not even here for the long term. The reviled 'long term tourist', a term we use for outsiders who will stay here for a few years and then go to the next happening place, has turned out to have a bigger heart than many of my fellow Goans.

Here’s an actual example. I have changed the names.

Teacher Helen who is a senior citizen from Aldona, and temporarily disabled, needs her medicines. She appeals for help. Kiara, a young woman from Bangalore temporarily working in Goa and living in Moira, takes the call and drives down to Aldona for Teacher Helen’s prescription. She takes it to the District Hospital Pharmacy in Mapusa, ten kilometres away, and procures the medicines and delivers them. A relative of Teacher Helen appreciates the effort and posts on Facebook. One Goan scrooge, named Eric, from the neighbouring village of Olaulim, questions why Kiara went to Mapusa when there is a pharmacy in Aldona. He suggests there is something amiss and somebody is making money. If Eric had asked around before shooting off his mouth, he would have been told that Teacher Helen’s medicines are only available at the District Hospital and that they are given for free. But no, he doesn’t ask around, but instead makes allegations against someone who has done a good deed.

Eric is, by no means, representative of all Goans, but it is such petty minded Goans who give our community a bad name.

I wrote elsewhere that there are lots of new heroes emerging all over Goa in these times of crisis. A subset of those heroes are these outsider heroes, non-Goans who have risen to the challenge in these difficult times. I will look at them differently now as I see their humanitarian attitude and activities. When this whole dastardly Covid-19 thing is over, maybe we Goans should re-examine our xenophobia and understand that humanity comes before ethnicity.

Don’t get me wrong. Not all Goans are like Eric nor are all non-Goans like Kiara. There are good Goans and there are indifferent Goans. There are good outsiders and there are indifferent outsiders. Let’s celebrate the good and hopefully awake the indifferent. Let it not be based on who was the earlier settler. We are all settlers here. - Cecil Pinto (Writer)

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