StyleSpeak: The Curse of Colvale
By Wendell Rodricks
It was past seven in the evening when I took my Sunday passoi in my
beloved Colvale. From vaddo to vaddo I went. Through leafy lanes with no
street lamps, across the old Patto road, behind the church of St Francis
of the Wounds and under the new highway. I do this walk every Sunday and
often during the week at dawn. It is not only a great forty five minute
cardio exercise; it also keeps me connected with my ancestral village.
That evening I went with a one point agenda. To source a spot in the
village where the sound of the highway did not penetrate. Stopping in
supposedly silent mango groves I heard the rumble. In ‘quiet’ Munshir
Vaddo, I heard the horns. In fact the noise is worse there than near our
home. I climbed the hill behind my father’s home. The din was
unbearable. What was once a quiet respite from the world is now
vibrating with noise. What is normally a walk under an hour took me the
better part of under two hours. I went further away to the fringes of
the village…near the Colvale fort, the riverside, and the fields. It was
impossible to get away from the highway.
Before 2000, Colvale was a sleepy village. An oasis of calm, one could
hear the pleasing sound of silence. All that changed when our crazed
leaders cut a wound through the village. Bang in the middle of Colvale
was suddenly a great divide. Trucks, many with non Goan number plates,
honked incessantly on the highway that is at a continuous curve.
Villagers lost land and homes to a highway that suits Indian drivers
more than it does Colvalkars. There is a large open freeway that runs
parallel to Goa across Maharashtra and Karnataka. But truck drivers love
our cheap booze and choose to run through Goa from north to south of the
country rather than stick to the Pune highway that connects to
Bangalore. Maybe they like our scenery, the low-priced sex for sale and
the ‘hot rice curry’ available next to the thriving liquor stores that
dot the NH17. I have seen drivers pick up boxes of beer, alcohol, feni
and tetra pack fruit juice. We have lost count of buses who blissfully
chuck out a carton of water bottles into the Colvale valley. More than
twice I have had a tetra pack flung into my windshield. The dangerous
curve has killed a few innocent villagers. The worst was a young child
who attempted to run into his mother’s arms but was cruelly snuffed out
by a speeding truck. In front of his mothers disbelieving eyes.
Is this what Colvalkars bargained for when they sliced our village in
two? Now the wondrous power players want to make the two lane highway
into a four or six lane. Why did they not inform us earlier…that the
plan would move from two lane to four lane? In twenty years I will not
see the day when the highway turns to an eight lane disaster. They might
as well take our lives now and erase the name of Colvale from the map.
Poised for destruction is the over hundred year old St Anthony chapel
and a dozen homes.
It is time to revolt. Colvalkars and all Goans affected by this highway
should block these audacious plans in the bud. There is no need for
public meetings with politicians who say one thing on a podium and plan
the rape of Goa in a unique stealth move they have perfected. Are they
living on the highway? NO! Why is our peace destroyed by administrators
and politicians who have no care for our needs for Goan peace and quiet?
Every single politician lives far from the noise. When plans are drawn
up they ensure that such “progress” does not affect them.
We all need progress but not at the cost of ruining a village.
Colvale is a unique lesson in what should not be done to any Goan
village. After installing an industrial zone, increasing our population
such that we are now in the minority, a scam satellite town, a prison
and a cursed highway, we are once again at the mercy of an expanding
highway that serves us NO PURPOSE. Please take this highway away and
give us back our untarred roads. If this is called progress we do not
want it. If politicians and the Centre in Delhi want it, let them do it
on their private lands. While we are on the matter, let them also take
away all the labour which has moved us from village status to town
status. Why should we be elevated to higher taxes when we are not
responsible for the population increase? Call the satellite town a new
postal name…not Colvale. As a gaoncar of Colvale I have seen my village
deteriorate before my eyes in a mere ten years. Expanding this highway
will ruin it further. We might as well sleep on the highway and let them
run over us.
This is no emotional plea. It stems from exasperation at a system which
has no concerns for the common Goan. It is shameful that our MLA from
Colvale is agreeing to these expansion plans. The entire plan should be
shelved.
Is there a viable solution? Yes! Ensure that the highway runs through no
Goan villages. Make a bypass when villages are in the path of a highway.
Charge a higher tax at the border so that truck drivers and heavy
vehicles are encouraged to use the parallel highway from Pune to
Bangalore. Above all, protest in large numbers on the streets and in the
ballot booth.
The message should be clear and LOUD: Give us back silence and peace!
(ENDS)
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First published in Goa Today, Goa - February 2011
