When Goa’s celebrated hospitality went missing from Old Goa

It was the penultimate day of the 55^th IFFI (International Film Festival of India) in Goa, and I wanted to check out the festival stalls which had been set up in the courtyard of Inox Panjim to see what they were all about.

So, I headed for the venue. On reaching the road leading to Inox, I was stopped by a young man who politely asked for my IFFI pass, without which I would not be permitted to enter the venue, the IFFI personnel informed me.

I explained that I didn’t have a pass and only wanted to check out the stalls, and not the movies. Once again, he courteously informed me that a pass was mandatory and directed me to where I could get my hands on one.

With that, I walked away, pleasantly surprised by the courteous manner in which he interacted with me.

The next day, I headed to Old Goa to attend a novena mass in honour of St Francis Xavier, just as I had done every year for as long as I can remember. Upon arriving at the pandal where the masses were being held, my first stop was the ‘Entry’ security gate.

Here, a young girl in uniform stopped both, my elderly mother and me, gesturing and telling us in Hindi to open our handbags.

It seemed like a routine procedure, or so I thought, until I noticed that all the other devotees were allowed to pass through the security gate without being stopped by her or any of the other personnel at the gate. This annoyed me no end!

Was she under the impression that my elderly mother and I were terrorists, or did she stop us simply because she assumed we were outsiders? I had half a mind to ask her what it was all about, but resisted the urge to do so, not wanting to create a scene and embarrass my mother.

The girl did eventually allow us to go, and we made it to the novena mass just in time.

About an hour later, the mass ended, and it was time for us to head home. My mother and I walked from the pandal to the barricade, where we waited a couple of minutes for our cab to pick us up.

The driver parked the taxi a few meters from where we were standing, and so, we walked towards the car, ever so slowly.

In the blink of an eye, a middle-aged traffic cop popped up in front of our waiting cab and began shouting, in Konkani, at the driver. One of his remarks was that if the cab driver had brought a senior citizen, she should be using a wheelchair. Really now!

If he felt that a wheelchair was a necessity for my mother, surely he could have asked somebody to fetch one for her. Or, maybe beckoned our cab to move closer to where she was standing so that she would not have to walk the distance.

Or, at the very least, he could have zipped his lips and showed a bit of empathy, and instead direct his machismo towards traffic offenders and law-breakers.

I sometimes wonder if he began ranting because he saw a taxi, and so assumed we were tourists. Were we at the receiving end of such unpleasant behaviour simply because we were perceived as tourists or outsiders?

Even though I’d like to give the people in uniform the benefit of the doubt and assume they were having a bad day, the fact is that the manner in which they acted is most unbecoming at a religious event, that too, one that is an important, once-in-a-decade occasion.

Where has the celebrated Goan hospitality gone, I ask! Is it slowly becoming a thing of the past, or is it reserved only for Goans? Granted that infrastructure, comfort, convenience and affordability are priorities for any tourist, but a disrespectful host is a definite turn-off.

While the 18^th Exposition of the Sacred Relics of St Francis Xavier presents a great opportunity to showcase Goa as an ideal destination in more ways than one, would such conduct leave a positive impression on tourists?

Perhaps, it is high time that personnel manning such touristy locations get some long overdue lessons in etiquette.