George Menezes

There was a time, during the editorship of Vinod Mehta, when I wrote a column for the Debonair. Later still I wrote my “By George” piece regularly first for the Sunday Express and later for the Sunday Midday.
The only government we had in those days was the Congress Government. Naturally, the Congress Party received the brunt of my satirical attention. Indira Gandhi’s personal insecurity, which led to a temporary suspension of our democratic rights, made Congress bashing all the more desirable though not easy.
This apparently tempted Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee to invite me to join the National Executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party. With of course the urging of Ram Jethmalani for whose election to Parliament from the North-West Bombay constituency I contributed in some small way.
When I joined the National Executive of the BJP all hell broke loose amongst the Pro-Congress fundamentalists in the Christian community. I was at that time a member of the Holy Father’s Council for the laity. Twenty three of us from around the globe on a five year tenure. My detractors wrote to the Holy Father asking that I be removed forthwith from his Council in view of my treacherous and traitorous act.
As expected they were not even favoured with a reply. The Holy Father was of the view that “it is better to build bridges than to build walls.”
In Goa, now on a vacation, I am confronted with the news that the Zuari bridge, like the Mandovi bridge some years ago is showing cracks. That it is, in fact, about to collapse into the river like some marathon, swimmer who has run out of breath and decides to give up. I am therefore left wondering about the infallibility of a Pope who recommends the building of bridges! The use of the plural is perhaps significant. One bridge will never do specially in my beloved Goa.
Here, of course, the collapse of post-liberation bridges is nothing new. In fact if any palmist were to read Goa’s palm they would discover several incomplete and disconnected lines.
“It is written in Goa’s hand”, as eminent jurist Nani Palkhivala would have said. In fact the Zuari bridge started to show signs of mortality the day after Nani Palkhivala’s speech in Goa in which he spoke of the role of fate and destiny in our lives. And perhaps the lives of bridges. And in the lives of incompetent and corrupt bureaucracies and Ministers.
So what is so great about the collapse of another bridge? It is like the unloosening of another decayed tooth in the mouth while you are asleep. The inquiry into the collapse of the Mandovi bridge revealed that a Junior Engineer was solely responsible !!!
Absolutely. You cannot trust these Junior Engineers. It appears that this particular chap was by-passed for promotion and decided to teach his Boss and his Minister a lesson. So in his anger he took a trip on one of the tourist cruise boats down the Mandovi river. As they were passing under the bridge he gave one of the spans of the bridge a good, hard kick.
A symbolic way of burning the effigy of your Boss. Unionized employees do this all the time. At that particular moment of uncontrolled fury he did not realise he was wearing “Adidas” shoes and that he had once played football for Goa. A fatal combination that brought the bridge tumbling down.
I am sure they will soon find the culprit in the case of the Zuari bridge. Some frustrated peon in the Department. Or as the rumour goes the bridge has been damaged by the toll collector who lost his job when the collections were recently stopped. There is no knowing where our Goan terrorists are hiding.
The collapse, however, is not the problem. The real problem would arise if any of our post-liberation bridges refused to collapse. Goans would start gathering at the “tavernas” and ask embarrassing questions.
Could it be that there are after all some honest people in the Ministries to whom the file was sent by mistake? Could it be that the Secretary and Minister were on a foreign trip to build bridges of friendship with the aborigines in Australia when the decision was taken. There is no saying what happened. Except that when all goes well there is a citizens uprising of surprise.
Personally I do not like bridges. Like Robert Frost who wrote “something there is in me that does not like a wall” there is something in me that does not like a bridge. May be deep down inside me I do not want a bridge across the Mandovi to ruin the peace and serenity of my ancestral home on the lovely island of Divar. Or maybe I like the old buses to Agassaim with conductors shouting “Aggshi bab, Aggshi”, literally translated to “You may shit, Sir. You may shit.”
You bet! The lovely people of Goa are taking more than a fair proportion of shit.