Girl About Town

I popped by to Goa for a day trip last weekend. It was a very spur of themoment thing, and since we were only there for a little less than 24 hours, wedecided to not do very much and spend our day bumming on the beach before wewent back to Mumbai.

In the evening, I had dinner with a mixed bunch of acquaintances andacquaintances’ acquaintances. One of them was a Goan man, born and bred in thestate and since our discussion turned inevitably to Scarlett Keeling, he spokeabout how sad and shocked he was to hear about it and how the beach it hadhappened on was just a little while away from his home.

I guess the debate was mostly about whose fault it was, a debate that’s beenhappening for a while. Everyone tended to blame the mother, who was offelsewhere in the country with her boyfriend and six other children, leaving herfifteen year old daughter alone in Goa with no money. A recent article quotedher as saying that this man, who she left Scarlett with, was "veryresponsible." He was 28, she was 15.

I’m still on the fence about my opinion though. While I agree that it is trulyirresponsible to leave a teenager on her own with a practical stranger, Idon’t know whether it is anyone's case that it completely exonerates the crime. One of the men at thetable said, "But look at what she was wearing, surely it was titillating."It’s Goa. People walk around topless and in really tiny clothes. I don’tthink that that is any excuse either.

Who’s to blame for Scarlett Keeling? Is she just a victim of the society welive in? One of the people at my table mentioned a British man who spoke uplater about how he saw her on the beach, how she had asked him for a ridebecause she had no money and how later he saw how drugged out she was. Hedidn’t want to get involved. Which got me thinking about what I’d do if Iwas in the same place. Would I intervene? Would I say where are your parents andwho’s taking care of you? After much soul searching, I realized that mostlikely I wouldn’t. I’d be on holiday. I’d be busy with whatever I wasdoing next. I’d think, oh another hippy and leave it at that. And in theprocess, I’d miss a chance to save someone’s life. Which is almost as bad askilling them in the first place.

We, citizens of the 21st century are, on the whole, an apathetic lot. We careabout ourselves, maybe extend it a little to include our nearest and dearest,but the rest of the world can basically go to hell. And getting involved is sucha complicated process these days, what with police reports and hundreds of questions toanswer when, at the end of the day, you just want to go home, have a nice dinner,take pretty photos and leave it at that. Back in the day, when knights inshining armour still walked the earth, there was no red tape, no forms, nopolice questioning. You did your good deed and that was that. Now even themotives of doing something nice for someone else are questioned.

I’d like to change that. I’d like to be able to look at a stranger introuble, really look, and be able to help them. Bureaucracy scares me, but youhave to face your fears, right?