Madh mangroves visit of 20th November 05

Visted Madh island on the invitation of Raghu on Sunday 20th November 05. Was there from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm with Mahesh Sinha and Viraat Singh.

Hi Raghu,

Sorry for the delay. I have to give you a background about what happened that day after we finished our meeting with you. To keep everyone in the loop I am blogging it.

We finished at around 11:00 am with you and then proceeded towards the connecting road between mainland and Madh. We had Mahesh’s van and waited there for any trucks that may come. We waited for nearly 45 minutes but there was no action. Then we went towards Malvani to have some snacks. It was when we sat in the restaurants that we saw the first few trucks pass by. Instead of immediately getting up and following them we thought that they would start streaming in and we will have many of them to follow. When we came out we started around 12:05 pm. We moved on that road and came and parked ourselves on the connecting road. We did not have any trucks coming there and decided to go back and check. When we were returning we again saw some trucks but realised that they were going to AIR hence we were able to see them at Malvani and not at the connecting junction. Interestingly the AIR compound a little after Bageecha is seeing so many trucks carrying debris?

Then we came back and thought that we will stay some time near the big swathe that has been created next to the road a little before your building and then go and take some pictures from top of your building. While we were at that swathe some interesting things took place. I tried to take some pictures and one of the watchmen from the SP Paper building opposite came and objected. He showed me the board of Shree Mukhteshwar society next to the road and said that the office bearers should be there right now and we should speak to them. We generally bounced of the concern about the dumping that is taking place and he said that it was considerably less now etc. He gave us the names of Balkrishna Patil and Ganesh Raut. We were not sure but then since he would not let us take pictures we said we will drive ahead and atleast observe what happens within the compound of the Satya Sai Baba complex from the outside.

We drove and parked on the side of the gate. There was a group of 5-6 people there and they observed our coming immediately. We were not sure whether we wanted to speak to them now and decided we will put up an ignorant bystander act. Apparently the watchman we had met earlier had already sounded them about our coming and we didn’t realize that. This group came towards the gate and towards us and looked suspicious and started enquiring. We fibbed that we were standing for a friend of ours. Then one of them (Prahalad Mhatre) said what were you doing inside our property and why were you photographing. I told them that we were interested in environmental issues and had seen these garbage and fruit packs littered behind the mound and decided to photograph them. We were not aware that they had been sounded of about our interested in dumping and didn’t have the time to realize also because all this happened very quickly in less than ten minutes.

I realized that they had been sounded of and it was pointless trying to evade. I directly came to the point telling them that we were concerned about the amount of mud that had been dumped in the swathe and had received complaints form neighbouring residents that nearly fifty trucks were dumping debris everyday or so. Those guys first tried to bully us about our telling lies but then I did not go on the defensive or loose my cool and humoured my way through the situation by telling them about how in such matters everyone is cautious and if they are saying that they are doing nothing wrong then we could now have a good open discussion and clear any misunderstandings. They very proudly started narrating their achievements and offered to take us through their compound and the farms that they are developing. They mentioned how the Shree Mukhteshwar society was set up in 1959 and had only now been able to get going and and start their work. They mentioned that the whole village (these guys were mainly from Aksa) was a devotee of Shree Satya Sai Baba. They started of by complaining how the out outside world’s perception of them was either not there or was not construed properly. They mentioned about how they were responsible for saving so many people from drowning on the beach but the media just covers the efforts of some people without doing proper research. I will in just cover their viewpoints and what we discussed.

1. They feel that the whole notion of there being a free flowing creek where water flows from below Aksa bridge and connects with the culverts below the connecting road is wrong. They say that this is absolutely not the case and there are two barrages created by them in between which are stopping the water at both sides( I hope I am not reading the conversation wrongly at this point and anyway we will have a chance to clear this in the next Sunday meeting).

There is already landmass in between according to them. Then they showed us their farming which they are carrying out by treating sewage from the 400 odd families in the village. They are diverting the sewage through pipes, passing them through ponds, which act as filters at various stages, and then using this water for irrigation. They seemed a nice, hard working and innovative bunch.

2.They mentioned about how they are running the school, which provides schooling absolutely free of cost to 700 students from all the villages from Manori to Madh. They also mentioned that some of their students coming from absolutely illiterate parents were doing well and there were some in merit. They were also running medical facilities free of cost. We asked them how they were bearing the cost since offering free of cost doesn’t mean that no cost is involved. They mentioned that Baba is helping them with donations and there were doctors from Malad who were giving free consultation.

3.They had complaints with generally the more urbane which would include you guys and us. They had a complaint as to how Harmony’s sewage was discharged raw into the sea and there were places on the beach where one had to leap over the sewage streams coming from Harmony.

I could basically sense that there was a suspicion and communication barrier between two sections here and tried to assuage them, comfort them and assure then that we were here to learn and not misrepresent facts. I also continuously mentioned how you would be really glad to meet them and they would have a very different view once they met you.

Based upon that I told them that we will have a detailed meeting next Sunday when Raghu and others who are interested could meet and we could do a detailed visit and see the barrages that they were mentioning. Maybe we could bring along a map and discuss things better.