India: Where Citizens Get Murdered And Murderers Walk Scot Free!
The worst and the most painful problem with these murders is that no one acknowledges them. There is hardly a news agency trying to give it prime coverage, hardly any human rights agencies trying to correct this inhumane violence and hardly any other citizen communities bothering to protest, trying to help or having at least the heart to condemn. Arre, mera to kuch nahi gaya bhaiya! Mera to koi nahi mara hai bhai! Mara gharma to badhdha safe chhe, mane nathi khabar kon maryu, ben! And of course, Arre mi kay karu shakte tya sathi, ata hotay tar hotay, mi tar karat nahiye na, mala ka bolta!
I get it, everyone’s busy! But are we so busy now that death does not hurt us anymore (life goes on, doesn’t it), are we so busy that we can’t even feel for something other than ourselves anymore or are we just so caught up in the daily grind that we’d rather overlook certain deaths, they are Darwin’s weaklings that are better off out of the gene pool!
I tell you one thing, I only saw these deaths through a bunch of photos and I just visualized them through a bit of verbose and I burn, for it hurts! It hurts so bad that I had to wait two days before I could write this piece. Now I hope I can make you visualize, touch, feel and live a little through these deaths with me and perhaps make you feel a little bit more than what you feel now! Over ambitious, probably! For we no longer have hearts and it would take much more than Christmas to make them expand like the Grinch’s again!
So yes, the deaths! They happened on the coasts of the Konkan region of Maharashtra. They went relatively unnoticed and there were no printed mortuaries. No one stood up for them and started any revenge riots and no one spoke up for them and started any International protests! They were quite simply the deaths of India’s second (or third or fourth) rate citizens that don’t even feature in our population census!
One of my cousins recently went on a trip to Guhagar, a tourist place that has a pristine reputation on the web. According to the web, it is the place that lets you avoid the traffic, pollution and crowds that are such a common part of the cities. Yet, these tourism websites couldn’t be more wrong! The pollution here is a little more dangerous!
When my cousin described his trip and showed me his photos, all that my eyes lingered on were the dead bodies lying on the shore. You see, they were killed at sea so no one really saw the murderers! The bodies were diverse in race and religion for there were star and jellyfish, eels as well as turtles amongst them. Crustaceans weren’t safe either for so many of them washed ashore dead and lifeless. The shores were swamped with the bodies of the very creatures that make up our oceans and all we humans noticed were the stench of the sea and the rush of the tides!
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| Crustaceans That Could No Longer Hold On! |
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| Death On Konkan’s Beaches |
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| Lifeless Star Fish On Konkan’s Beaches |
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| Turtles Killed In Their Own Homes! |
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| With Already Low Survival Rates, These Don’t Stand A Chance! |
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| I Swallowed Your Trash, Humans! |
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| Washed Ashore! |
Alas, when nature fashioned us, it really gave us too much of brains and too little of consideration, sensitivity and love. Maybe the next time, she will do better
I was doing some research on this and it seems these deaths are linked to chemical and oil poisoning. If you think this doesn’t concern you, you might want another thought to come soon! For this kind of pollution does not take long to work it’s way up the food chain! And once humans start dying of it, I am sure humans will do something about it too! Not to mention what all the learned already know, we are alive because they are, kill a species and feel the repercussions on yours!
Bohot ho gaye pravachan, let me give you some hard facts, since hard facts seem to hit us the most! In 2012 (and yes, this has been going on for years before that) a news article reported the death of two dogs who had earlier given curious licks to the dead turtles on this very same shore. Yes, now you are getting a clearer picture aren’t you? That’s exactly how toxic our seas really are. And you want to take your 5 year old for a swim don’t you? You might want to try that indoor pool instead!
Let’s move to Mumbai, since anything that happens in Mumbai is much more newsworthy than something that happens in Chiplun and Alibaug right? The death on Mumbai’s shores have been of the more celebrity kind. There have been giant Baleen humpback whale sharks, Bryde’s whale sharks, the much beloved dolphins, Olive Ridley turtles and scores of small and large local fish. There goes all the effort that conversationalists put in hatching new baby turtles and leading them to the sea safe and sound. They are probably all dead now and you dads and moms should ideally mourn their death. See, that’s why I am not a conversationalist. Else, you’d see me take revenge on mankind for slaughtering my kids, a la America style, once I get my hands on a gun!
It is not just the unregulated hazardous chemicals dumped in our seas that is causing the problem, it is the unnoticed oil leaks and the unauthorized activity of sand digging trawlers. You’d be surprised at how many turtle homes are ravaged by those murderous propellers. We have our very own Middle East style aggression going on on our shores!
And if you thought that you personally were not to blame for these massacres, think again! For you, I and every single one of us is. Do you remember that ice cream wrapper you had used to decorate your sand castle? Well technically that was garbage! And it is now sticking out of the mouths of several of these dead fish who thought it was food. You, me and all of us, we are the killers! Make no mistake about that!
Let us do something about this people, let us get the message across to the authorities. No more excuses. Yes, no one listens, but they will, if you shout hard and shout long everyone will, everyone must. These are not the majestic tigers of our nation, nor the critically endangered ghariyals, but they are equally magnificent and have an equal right to live in their lands! Take up this cause just as you would take another, wholeheartedly and will complete commitment. Let’s try everything to get someone, anyone and everyone to listen for this is a cause, a real cause! Konkan is beautiful, let’s keep it that way. Tranquil for us and tranquil for them!
Thanks to my cousin Aniruddha Datar for the blog’s pictures and here hoping that he can send me some more.
