Marine Pollution is our responsibility
I was posted to Goa on promotion in 1995 and must confess it was one of the most exciting part of my life. Met wonderful friends,learnt excellent professional inputs,explored nature to its best with adventure and exploring. Both geographically and culturally. It gelled with my temperament to the “T”. Infact people thought I was a local.
We were a jovial group of 6 friends a mix of locals and two, one from North India and another from Nepal. Every weekend we would explore new party destinations. Goa is a small place and beach parties,visiting exciting shack restaurants,boutique restaurants was considered party siesta time. One of such joint was visiting Palolem beach in South of Goa. A secluded picturesque natural beauty beach with uncanny party vibes. Our Nepal friend had a friend owning a beautiful shack which was densely crowded during weekends by foreigners,party animals,hard core and scuba diving teams. In a month we would be visiting this place twice or thrice as he arranged DJs from across the ocean. His parties and musical concerts were highly anticipated by party hoppers across Goa.
One of the Sundays we stayed back at his shack as the party got over at 3.00am. Since we were about 55kms away from Vasco-da-gama where we stayed it was not advisable to drive as those who were to drive us were tipsy. Early morning at about 5am we heard a commotion of locals yellling at the beach. We came out from our rooms and headed towards the beach at about a kilometer where a huge crowd had gathered. We saw a young whale baby fish on the shore with plastic nets and water bottle entangled in her teeth. She was dead and her flesh was being scratched by vultures and dogs. Pool of blood from her and all the left over pieces of tiny flesh were being drifted in the sea making it extremely polluted. There was a strong odour making it impossible to stay there. Some local fisherman were also involved in insanely grabbing flesh from the baby. It was a very nauseating scenario. It seemed the baby whale must have been thrown on the shore by the waves may be a day before. There was a heated debate amongst the gathered as to who shall clear this menance and take the responsibility. They were expecting the owner of the schack restaurant to take the onus of getting this mess cleared and he was not willing; as he believed he was not responsible. He left for the market for daily purchase. The locals were insisting us to look into the matter. This was not the phase of mobile phones hence we could not give a call to our friend who left without informing us. We assured the locals that since we stayed in Vasco-da-gama we will inform the pollution board about the issue and left feeling helpless. There was a local MLA also staying nearby but he was also not willing to intervene in the matter.
On our way back home we did try to visit the Pollution Board control office but since it opened only at 11.00am we left a message with the watchman to look into the matter. We all had office to attend and since there was no mobile facility available at that time we were not aware whether the matter was resolved and the shore cleaned and cleared. But from the local newspapers we did learn that the issue prolonged for another three days with the whale baby lying on the beach as it is.
Marine pollution,plastic pollution,garbage spread,drug menance,harassment of foreigners etc. on the beach are nuisances which were not attended that time and even now with some improvement only now because ocean pollution and its implications are not taken seriously. The oceans and its living beings are highly taken for granted as far as pollution is concerned.
A need for stringent measures,guidelines and task force as beach clean ambassadors need to be effective to save us from some very drastic disasters which are climate change imposters. We as citizens need to be aware and responsbible in keeping our environment and our oceans,seas,beaches clean and sustainable for healthy living for all inside it and outside. Environmental upgradation is a collective/responsibility/action not to be left only for authorities.
