Akshay contemplates the state of affairs...
We reached Bhubaneswar on Sunday, early morning…and promptly
checked into our hotel, situated 1 km from the station...The Arya
Palace. We stayed here overnight and through the next
day...basically just getting ourselves sorted out, getting
appointments with various people fixed, meeting with our guide cum
translator for the entire trip (a man by the name of Mr. Soumya
Tripathi). We did manage, however, to interview the Head of
Department Of Botany, Orissa University of Technology and
Agriculture, and a group of professors from Utkal University. We
also managed a brief visit to the Shanti Shtupa, on the outskirts
of Bhubaneswar.
On Tuesday we left for Chilika Lake, a half a day journey from
Bhubaneswar, via Puri. (Due to the famous Yatra going on at the
time, Puri was jam-packed with devotees, and tourists i'm sure) We
reached the lake in the afternoon, checked in at a Govt. tourist
guest house spent an hour freshening up...and then we were off to
begin our work. An hour later we were at a village, on the shores
of the lake, close to where the local government had done some
recent restoration work, which principally involved the opening of
a new mouth.. This was done since the previous mouth had become
blocked (through natural events) and hence the lake's survival was
in jeopardy. We spent the rest of the afternoon interviewing
villagers and scouting out the village. Once that was done, we took
a long boat ride around the lake...and we actually had the luck to
see a few Irrawady Dolphins at play (a species of dolphin only
found in this lake in the whole of Asia, and naturally the source
of fame for the lake). We were still on the boat when darkness
fell, and it was truly a memorable experience. The night wind had
picked up...he put up the sails, and we sailed back to shore
witnessing the beauty of the moonlit lake (mind you, it was almost
full moon that night). Back on dry land, we headed back for our
guesthouse. We had dinner at a roadside shack very near to the
guesthouse, after which we all needed catch up on some sleep.
Things didn't turn out as we planned. Sometime after reaching the
guesthouse, the current went!!! The rooms became too stiffling hot
to stay in…and since the night breeze was pretty strong and
cooling, we just took our mattresses from our rooms and put them in
the corridors (which were in the open air); apart from the
mosquitoes, the candles and lamps lit up the night for us and off
we went to sleep.
The next day, we went to the old mouth of the lake...another
truly wonderful experience. It took us nearly 5 hours with over
2-hours on boat to reach the village we had in mind. And what a
village it was!!! So remote, it seemed to have been cut-off from
the rest of the world. The village itself was atop a sand bar that
divided the sea from the lake...for miles around there was
untouched pristine beach, not a soul in sight. Without a doubt, we
truly had a splendid time on that stretch of beach. A round of
interviews followed, after which we headed back to our guesthouse.
The interview was insightful and their plight caught us as
something we found unable to shake off easily. The sea had
eventually become 'furious' and their catch declined considerably.
Besides, the heat they spoke of suggested unprecedented misery.
The rest of our trip didn't carry anything really spectacular
like what I've mentioned above, and it followed pretty much a
regular routine...go to a place, check in at the hotel/guest
house...head for the villages, interview people and get back. The
places we visited after Chilika Lake were; Konark, Aastarang,
islands off Aastarang and Talcher.
In Konark, Amrit and I, along with Salil visited Chandhrabhagha,
a small coastal village. It was quite early in the morning, and the
villagers were just beginning their day. Small children ran about
playfully amongst the poultry (mostly ducks, from what we saw),
while the women began cooking the day's first meal and the men were
busy tending to their boats and fishing nets. With help from a
C.P.D.A (Coastal Peoples Development Authority) official, we
interviewed a couple of fisherwomen who gave us really interesting
insights into their lives, as well as great information as to the
impact of climate change on them.
Back in Bhubaneswar, on the second last day in Orissa, we
organized a press conference on all the stuff we had done...and the
press included major television networks- Zee, NDTV, Aaj tak, etc,
while the newspapers included Indian Express, Times of India, The
Pioneer, The Statesman and a host of other local dailies.
That apart, I wanted to share some rather personal things that I
experienced/discovered during my trip. For one thing...the people
of the villages we had visited are a pretty resilient lot. Despite
all they've suffered...cyclones, floods and drought, they still
push on in life, not looking back on anything. Some people, having
given an interview on how they suffer daily to get enough food to
feed the family...still manage the hospitality to offer us tea!!!
In places like Aastarang...which was one of the worst hit by the
super cyclone of 1999, we could still see the ruins of peoples'
houses, now left to rot because there isn't enough money to rebuild
the house (even though they were made of simple brick and thatch)
instead, most families have just built smaller shacks of stick,
thatch, and cow dung. However, what I found most touching was the
interview we did in Chandhrabhagha. Speaking to a fisherwoman
there, she was asked what she feared most about climate and the
rise in sea levels, etc, to which she answered, 'I don't care if
the sea takes my house, money or my livelihood...I just pray
everyday that when my husband and sons go out to the sea they come
back home safe, and are not taken away from me by a cyclone or
storm.' A pretty powerful statement, in my opinion: I guess one has
to be there to hear it and feel it.