Day 22 : Don’t you think its all useless what you are doing?

“Don’t you think it’s all useless what you are doing?” she asked me with a depressed spirit. She had endured a lot of pain through this time.

“I have fought with this mining company for years now, and yet there is no solution. These beautiful hills, for which we bought this piece of land, is being destroyed in front of my eyes. I have watched hill after hill die a painful death. Foxes howled in these woods, during the morning and evening hours, they are homeless now. Leopards ran wild, this was their territory, they too are orphaned. Peacocks flew around these mountains. My cows roamed quietly in these jungles. Where should they go now?” she asked me?

The woman I was speaking with, lives in this mountain alone. She owns a piece of land where she takes care of her chicken and cows. Her life was destroyed by the surrounding mining. Her feet had a layer of red dust. They had cracks in some part and a constant exposure to this dust made her feet bleed. Even though she lives on the top of a serene mountain, overlooking the sea and a beautiful mountain range in her backyard, she cannot open her windows. She has to close every window and keep cleaning the floor every now and then. Her dogs too had a reddish layer on them, so did her cows. Her plants too were bathed in the red dust coming from the bauxite mine located across the road.

“I have tried reaching everyone. I thought the government was good and thus I even tried to reach the current Chief Minister’s personal assistant, but I got a cold reply from them too. I realised much later that the local minister has a stake in this mine and thus no one could stop it. A team of environment assessment officers had come to check the mine. They found that the mine was wrong on all fronts, and yet nothing changed. What am I supposed to do? These cows are like my children, I cannot leave them. I am attached to them from their birth. I am here because of them. How can I leave?”, her eyes spoke of the endless pain she had witnessed so far. She controlled herself, but her eyes were filled with a stream of water, ready to flow anytime she would let it loose.

I had asked a nearby villager about the impact of these mines on their village. The mines were situated within the limits of their Gram Panchayat (village boundaries). This was totally illegal, but whom would to ask questions to when the local minister himself owns a stake in these mines? I asked him, “so why doesn’t the village come together and speak up?”

He looked down in shame and kept beating his stick on a stone when he said, “they (the mining company and minister) built a temple in this village.”

Now here’s some questions that we could ask ourselves,

Is a temple going to fill their stomach?

Will that temple save these jungles?

Will it bring back the leopards, the peacocks, the foxes?

What kind of God allows his own children to be destroyed under such circumstances?

Today the village and its wadis are under a constant threat. The constant drilling has shaken the foundations of their houses. Any day now they could face a landslide which would destroy their entire village, including that temple. Aren’t these people being looted in the name of God? Their simplicity and belief is used against them, to loot their lands and orphan the wildlife. The owner of this land, where the mining is carried out, doesn’t care. He lives far away from all this. If and when the landslide will occur, he won’t be found under the rubble— nor will the minister.

We are being fed a fake story of development. We are unaware of what is happening on the ground. We lack conscience. The ones who are financially able, should help these villagers to fight these battles in court. The advocates should fight for these people. All of Konkan should file cases in the National Green Tribunal— ask for information under Right to Information. The ones living in the cities should get out of their bubbles. Their silence is scary. They should stop consuming information which is being given to them through media and social media. That’s keeping them in a state of deep sleep. We need to wake up. We won’t be able to fight these battles ones the road works begin. This is the only time when we can speak up. If we keep mum now, we keep mum forever.

“Don’t lose hope,” I told her, “If you trust in a higher power, then believe that you were chosen to fight this battle. You cannot drown in depression and think that nothing will change. Change takes time. People are waking up to this. They see that their silence has caused this upheaval. I understand that they aren’t yet speaking their truth. I know that they are afraid, but man cannot live in darkness for long. He has to come out someday. I believe that people will speak up. They will tear open their blindfolds one day and that is coming soon…”

---

If you can help me by contributing for this walk, then please do, I could start a kickstarter or manage crowdfunding through some other website, but none of those options are available to me here in India. So, I will be dependant on your donations. You can contribute through paypal - here’s the link. I will send out a personalised postcard if the donations are above $30 and if it’s above $100 then whatever comes out of this walk - a book, a documentary or anything else - you will be the first ones to receive it.

Thanks for your continual support. I am truly grateful!