| The swarthy man in the violently bright Bermudas sauntered up to me as I lay on a sun bed on Goa's Baga Beach. "Would you like a foot massage?" he asked. I sighed blissfully "" the sky was blue, the surf was crocheting a lacy hemline on the beach. All I needed was a foot massage to believe I was in heaven. |
| Needless to say, I gladly acquiesced. Around us were thousands of tourists on the beach "" eating, drinking, getting hennaed, tattooed, massaged. All of which must translate into good money for those in the tourist trade, I imagined. "Have you been doing good business this season?" I asked. "We've done better," he said, "this year the travel advisory by Israel has put a dampener on tourism here!" |
| His name was Ganesh, he said, and he was from Hubli in Karnataka. "It's not far from Goa," he said, "but has none of the employment opportunities that Goa does." Like most other migrants, Ganesh too works in Goa from October to March, and then returns to his village with enough to stay afloat for the remainder of the year. "In good years," he said, "I've often made around Rs 8,000 just in the week between Christmas and New Year. That is why so many of us in Hubli dream of coming to Goa to earn!" |
| He estimated that in south Goa alone, there'd be at least 3,000 people from his part of the world, working as waiters, masseurs, vendors and so on. But this season, he said, the Goan dream had proved to be just a dream so far. "And when the earnings are bad, living and working in Goa can be really tough on migrants like me," he rued. |
| I shut my eyes and dozed as he got on with the job at hand. Suddenly, a shadow fell over me. It was a tall, portly man in a baseball cap. The miracle hands stopped their magic and the masseur squealed, "Sorry Madam. I just have to give my friend something. I'll be back in a jiffy!" The "friend" looked ominously unfriendly, so I was curious to see what happened next. They'd moved out of earshot, but I saw them both gesticulating angrily. Finally, the masseur handed across a wad of fifties to him. They shook hands cordially, and the masseur returned. "What was that all about?" I asked. |
| He shrugged: "just the monthly payment we make, to be allowed the privilege of working here!" he said. The "friend", he disclosed, was actually a policeman in plain clothes so as not to appear too conspicuous. "We've been told that it is actually illegal for us to operate here," he added. |
| "But for years, tourists have believed that the Goan beach experience is incomplete without a massage!" I exclaimed, "how can it be illegal?" Ganesh replied that for people like him, asking questions didn't pay. "We give him about Rs 2,000 a month. It's much easier!" he said. This year, since the pickings hadn't been good, the cop had kindly agreed to accept his bribes in installments. "I paid him Rs 800 today, and he's willing to take the rest on a weekly basis," said Ganesh. "He didn't note anything in any notebook," I remarked, "so maybe he'll forget how much you owe him!" Ganesh smiled ruefully: "when it comes to money, his brain is like a computer "" he'd remember every paisa anyone owes him!" He sighed as he finished my foot massage, and said, "Goa seems like paradise to tourists, but life here is pretty tough for people like me who make it so!" |
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