Don’t take a break - Why the Indian tourist should learn some manners. Or stay home.
Goa tourism minister might have gone overboard with his remarks, but he does have a point.
Goa tourism minister Manohar Ajgaonkar is an angry man. He wants only “good tourists” to enter his state, and has no patience for those who spoil Goa’s “culture and discipline”, apart from “misbehaving with women”.
Ajgaonkar is not alone in his angst. A few months ago, Goa’s town and country planning minister Vijai Sardesai had called domestic tourists “scum of the earth”. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar himself wants to fine people for drinking and littering in public.
Mounted on their high horses, the ministers are chasing reasoned discussion away. But beyond the xenophobic stereotyping, they do have a point.
We Indians as tourists are remarkably ill-behaved.
And before getting all prickly and going “criticising Indians is fashionable”, let’s remember that the truest witness, the most faithful chronicler of this phenomenon, too, are us, the fellow Indian tourists.
How many times have you cursed as you saw a gaily tossed packet of chips from the vehicle ahead fly by your car window? How many times have you wrinkled your nose and held your breath when forced to use a public loo? How many times have you grimaced at ‘Rajat loves Roshni’ scrawled over beautifully inlaid, centuries-old marble? How many times have you rolled your eyes as people tried to holler a tiger awake at a zoo?
This is aside from the spoon-stealers, the toiletry-takers at hotels.
It’s not just the Goa ministers who are complaining. Popular destinations across India — Nainital, Mussoorie, Ooty, Ladakh — are groaning under the litter, the pollution, and the insensitivity that tourists dump on them.
The fact that most of these are areas with a fragile ecology makes matters worse.
A lot of these are issues that the government needs to fix. Unregulated and rapid construction, infrastructure not keeping pace with the influx of tourists, no checks on the number of vehicles and the areas they are allowed entry into, grossly inadequate numbers of dustbins and toilets, are problems that need urgent attention from the administration.
But there’s no excuse for a lack of basic civic sense.
Ladakh, as anyone who has visited it knows, is breathtaking. Nature there is bleak, forbidding, but grand. There are vast stretches of proud mountains, with vestiges of last year’s snow deposited in clumps. For as far as the eye can see, there are brown mountains, the roads lined with gleaming white ice. With Uncle Chips packets frozen into them. Shards of beer bottles glinting here and there.
What irresistible need can compel you to throw out a bottle of water or a packet of biscuits the moment you are done with it? Why not keep these in your car till you find a dustbin?
After Three Idiots branded Pangong Lake into the domestic tourist’s imagination, scores of Maggi-coffee shacks have come up on the banks of the lake, most named on variations of ‘Rancho Café’, ‘The Three Idiots Coffee Shop’. To their credit, the cafes do keep a dustbin, or at least a bucket that can serve as one.
But the merry tourist does not care. He comes, he sees, he litters. The clear waters of the truly pristine lake show plastic bottles bobbing around inside. The banks are embellished with Styrofoam cups.
The littering and the loud music overnight campers play is destroying the fragile ecology of the lake.
On the way to Pangong lies the tiny area home to Himalayan Marmots. The furry, adorable animals are dying because tourists insist on feeding them biscuits.
Why would you behave like this?
You went to a place presumably because you found it beautiful and/or interesting. Instead of enjoying it, trying to learn something about it, and leaving it beautiful for other tourists, why treat it like your apartment during a weekend booze party?
Just last month in Mcleodganj, at a stall selling Buddhist prayer instruments, I overheard two women enthusiastically discuss how good they would look on the “chhote bedroom ki balcony”, while the hurt stall-owner tried to tell them these weren’t just pretty baubles but had religious significance for Buddhists.
Possibly because we are just visitors and will leave once the holiday is over, we don’t feel responsible towards the place. Possibly we are in the “winding down” mode, and go lax on rules we would otherwise observe.
Whatever the reason, we are irresponsible. We are insensitive. We are destructive. And this takes a toll. After we finish a vacation and come back, the locals are left to pick up the pieces. Over and over again.
Goa minister Manohar Ajgaonkar cannot certify a tourist as “good” before they enter his state. But we know when our behaviour is less than good. A holiday should not mean taking leave of basic manners, civic sense and responsibility.