Read a news item in a local daily, about the local youth and parishioners of St. Andrew's Church in Vasco city, cleaning up the Vaddem lake. Good initiative on the part of the locals and parishioners for taking up this pre-monsoon cleaning up activity of a water body. We need to clean and conserve our age old fresh water bodies as they are either becoming extinct or getting polluted. It is also nice to see that this lake and the area around it has been beautified a couple of years ago... I was told by some local senior citizens that, in the past, this lake was much bigger in size. It got diminished over the years, as it was not being cleaned annually and started getting filled up with silt and mud due to the collapsing of its laterite stone edges/walls. They further pointed out that at the time of the recent beautification, the laterite stones have been replaced by concrete which is not a very good thing. The advantage of laterite stones was that they prevented the formation of algae in the lake. Before beautification the water was allowed to flow in and out at one end of the lake which is not happening now. Also the laterite stone walls allowed the natural flow of springs into the lake which does not happen in the case of concrete walls. They said that this will lead to stagnation of the water in the lake which is bad. I remember, in my childhood days, that there was one big Dhobi wada on the Northern side of the lake which extended right upto the river bank (bay of Zuari river). As one would approach Vasco from the winding Chicalim hill slope, one would get a beautiful view of the lake as well as the small canals and culverts of water. The local washermen (dhobis) could be seen washing clothes and hanging them to dry on ropes tied to pegs. It would remind me of Dhobitalao in Mumbai, but here, it was more scenic and beautiful, as the culverts were surrounded by lush green surroundings of the Vaddem hill and not a concrete jungle. Somewhere in the late 80s, a real estate owner, bought the entire area consisting of the dhobi wada (except the lake), levelled and filled it up with mud, created plots and sold them to the public. Now we can see all bungalows and buildings of concrete in that area. At present, the only water body that exists in this Vaddem area is this lake. It gives a unique identity to our port town of Vasco as we approach the town driving down the Chicalim slope. For decades, the local Hindu community has been using the lake for Ganesh idol immersions. l have noticed that always, care has been taken that the immersed idols are of clay and not plaster of Paris. Nowadays, a local NGO has been keeping pots for depositing the Nirmalya (flowers and offerings) in them, instead of throwing that in the lake, during the idol immersion. In modern times, during the main festivals of Diwali and Christmas the local youth put up a beautiful display depicting the respective festival right in the center of this lake. They also decorate and illuminate the place around. This gives a beautiful and festive look to the lake and the whole around it in the festival season. Sadly, at present the ownership of the lake is under dispute. The Fábrica da Igreja de Vasco da dama has challenged the government authorities in the court about the ownership of the lake after the government carried out the beautification of it two years ago. The attorney to the Fábrica has quoted to the press that, soon after the beautification, the government has been trying to take possession of the lake but has not done any maintenance, cleaning or repair work of it. He further stated that, it is the locals and parishioners who have been doing so, as stench has been emanating from the lake. Hopefully, the matter will be solved as early as possible, as it will be beneficial, for the continuity of healthy existence of this Vaddem lake, in our Port town of Vasco...
