ing in depth,
the pros and cons.

One point that had us puzzled was from ought the sound
to be measured. At its source, or from the point where
the complaint was made. Obviously, the authorities
could not place their sound-metres at the mouth of a
10,000 watt music speaker and say the decibel level
were high. When pointed out, the Secretary of the Goa
State Pollution Control Board talked greek. For that
matter, we discovered that the pollution control board
was not even equipped with proper sound-metres. Neither
could the government come in defence of the music
industry and allied activities like the night clubs
which depended on music and entertainment to draw
tourists to Goa.

After the much touted and much publicised millennium
rave party by Mumbai tycoon Jay Wadia was banned by the
High Court in December 1999, I was witness to two rave
parties in January 2000, though on a smaller scale, but
where the corruption by the police was displayed in its
full naked glory nonetheless. At one rave party at
Bamboo Forest in Anjuna, instead of stopping the party,
the police arrived, collected their share and left the
place as unobtrusively as they came. They were blind to
the open sale of drugs and were deaf to the raves'
sound pollution which carried on well past midnight
into the wee hours of the morning.

Another rave party also organised near Anjuna was
completely insulated against police harassment. Such
was the extent of influence asserted by the organisers
of this rave party that the police just turned a deaf
ear to phone calls made by Choppy and me just to check
how much the police is interested in enforcing the law.
We do not know whether money had changed hands but when
we did not get any response to the repeated phone calls
we made to the nearest police station we personally
went to speak to the police officer on duty -- but to
our horror found the police station was closed, lock
stock and barrel, as deserted as a place hit by a
typhoon. But our labour was not in vain. Next day, this
was in February 2000, Ashley ran an exclusive report on
the front page based on our first hand account. But the
surprising part was the way the DySP North Goa denied
everything, including our calls and visit to the police station.

My days in Herald are truly memorable. Along the way I
did trample on a few toes inadvertently, but my well
wishers and the learning tips they provided me are
invaluable. Any memories I carry of H