sending a middle i once wrote, kind of related to article below.
Different Minescapes
The black, sooty, dreary landscape looked like something from another planet.
Hundreds of trucks, endlessly raced and swayed over and across the muddy, curvy
roads, up and down the slopes. Giant cranes cruelly devoured the mud, causing
crates, landslides, in an organized way. It's difficult to believe that this
area
from where the state's big money came, lay on the fringe of one of India's
greenest
states, Goa. My request to visit a mine had been met with a perplexed "Why?" I
had
no answer except that I was curious.
The pebbly earth that the cranes crunched was raised to a height, sieved
through
rattling, shaking, graded meshes. The enormous imported machines that yanked
the
transport belts looked, sounded and were a decade old. The men (no womenfolk
here)
paced leisurely up and down the line, monitoring the activity. The loaders on
the
trucks led a more hectic life. Had their supervisors carried whips, they might
have
resembled the Egyptians who built the pyramids. Not a thing pretty here. Not a
bird,
flower, no colour, no peace.
The black, sooty ore, washed and graded, stored piled, open to the sky, was
transported later by road to the closest quay from where it would be ferried to
the
main port. Thence to worldwide destinations.
I expected the same ugliness when I went down a salt mine in Poland. What a
contrast. At 135 metres, the deepest mine in the world gave me one of the most
memorable experiences of my life. From Crakow to Wieliczka, the drive was
smooth,
with flat green fields on either side. Once the tickets were bought and we
entered
the cool (13 deg C) blackness, the stern guide took over. The crystalline
walls, the
floor, were gleaming, solid sodium chloride. Our guide explained how things had
evolved over 400 years.
There were full-sized statues of saints and kings carved out of the 'rock'. The
humidity in our breaths could dissolve them, so we kept our distance. Seeping
and
dripping water could form streams that would dissolve an entire mine, and cause
deaths: channels were made for the safety of the workers. Once horses were
lowered
into the shafts to work the wheels and levers, so large was the subterranean
maze.
Deeper, was a big cathedral with chandeliers whose crystals, too, were made of
salt.
On the walls were carved figurines, scenes from the Bible. The floor was made
to
give the appearance of tiles. Still in use, these mines have a museum, a
cafetaria,
even a post-office.
We can't look after the Taj, leave aside converting a mine into a tourist
attraction.
(The Times of
India, 17
Oct, 2003)
