Survival of the Filthiest

DURING the last three years, I have heard a lot about the Calangute Panchayat's garbage disposal problems. They started off by dumping it on the Saligao-Pilerne plateau opposite the Saligao Seminary. Now they have started dumping it at the doorstep of Marna village and the Assagao plateau. The Calangute Panchayat obviously feel that out of sight is out of mind.

Since I am a retired garbologist. I decided to study the issue in the interest of social justice and equity in the world's biggest democracy and the country's smallest State.

So, some days ago, I visited the site of the garbage dump along with some of the affected villagers. And there was the garbage with all its smells and blue bottle flies. There was all the paper, glass, kitchen slops, plastic, rubber and the rest of the filth. I could not stand the stench or the flies. There were bird, animal and human scavengers, trying to keep alive by recycling some of the garbage. There were also the garbage men pushing garbage over the edge of the abandoned stone quarry. They wore face masks and looked like surgeons who took the wrong turning in life on their way to the GMC.

Villagers, who accompanied me, expressed their fears and anxieties freely. Their air was polluted. Vector-borne diseases were on the rise. They were sure that, in a few years their water source would get polluted and they would have to abandon their villages so that the land sharks and builders could move in.

Now came the difficult part. How to locate the man responsible for dumping the garbage as a land filling exercise. My enquiries indicated I had to see the urban development people in the government. They were not helpful at all, and so I was forced to make further enquiries. Why would anyone want to execute such a hostile takeover of an ecologically fragile area, which sustains so much life?

Detailed enquiries and study provided a repetitive theme with the key word being molester. So, I went to my dictionary and was rewarded.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary the meaning of the word molest is: Meddle hostilely or injuriously with (person).

The origin of the word is from the Latin 'molestus ' meaning troublesome. Have we reached a new stage of human development in Goa at the fag end of the 20^th century? Have we discovered the latest evolution of man from Homo Sapiens to Homo Molestus ? Thinking Man to Troublesome man.

A retrograde step for Goa.