Paradise lost

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: We have been reading about it in the papers, about how Goa is on the verge of losing its soul. There are too many people feeding on the land of plenty, read land sharks, desperate politicians, lazy locals, greedy tourists, and Goa, once a perfect idyll, isn’t what it used to be. After his debut novel Tin Fish and the non-fiction Red Sun, Travels in Naxalite Country, Sudeep Chakravarti, for whom Goa is home, laments the loss of paradise, in fiction.

So, we have the usual suspects, a thug and land shark Winston Almeida, Russian druglord Sergei, a Brazilian transsexual go-between, and a local policeman who pretty much ensure that Goa becomes a creaky paradise. Standing in their way is Dino who’s the angry young man who must stop his homeland from being ravaged. Unfortunately, you know what fate awaits Dino, especially after you have heard him rave and rant against, well, “everyone and everything — ‘political worms, ore-sons and un-real estate developers’ and other conquistador of Aparanta’s land, trance merchants, the overflow of travellers, the ennui of residents, himself.” He is committed to save his paradise and nothing can stop him, not even his beloved six-year-old daughter Anjali who would often lead her angry father under the shade of the jacaranda or jackfruit tree to calm him down. But can Dino and his friends from Save Goa Society, save Goa’s soul. Hell, no.