Aliya Abreu
When my colleague and I reached Nauxim to meet the local fishers, I did not know what to expect. I sort of expected them to be antagonistic towards us, assuming we were the “bad guys.” I also didn’t expect them to be free in the afternoon, not realising that the regular “work timings” did not apply to fishers.
As we drove down the road to Nauxim, my colleague called up a youngish fisherman named Vidhesh, whose number he had earlier obtained. The road leading down from the main Dona Paula road into Nauxim is a fairly narrow road (but well done), and poses a problem for two cars to pass through at the same time.
Once at the hamlet, Vidhesh came out to meet us, and led us down to the beach where around 50 boats were seated on their logs. To my pleasant surprise, one by one, many fishers from the village joined us till there was like a small group of us gathered around the boats, chatting in the rain.
By the way, the fishers’ homes are very close to the beach, and I assure you, there are definitely more than “12-15 homes” - the number of houses that the marina promoters would like you to believe there are.
So we asked the fishermen first of all whether they could imagine what a marina would be like. They all said they knew, as Prof Ramrao Wagh had shown them pictures. Then we asked them what they thought of a marina coming up right at, and in the waters in front of their village, and their responses reflected their anger.
“We’ve been fishing in these waters from the time of the Portuguese. At the time they had given us a license which we paid Rs 5 for. We cannot imagine what our lives would be like if this livelihood is taken away from us, as we are not educated, and know nothing but this,” one of the ramponkars in his sixties said.
They said, all the residents of the hamlet are fully into fishing, and each family owns a boat. Even the younger generation is into fishing, and they went on to list the variety of fish they catch in these waters...prawns, tiger prawns, pomfret, and a whole lot of other premium varieties. They also said that occasionally, some sea horses would come along to say hello.
“Once, a whole lot of sea horses showed up in our nets so we rescued them and put them in an aquarium of sorts at home. We didn’t really know their dietary needs though, so they survived only a few weeks. Until a few weeks back, I had some in my home,” said a youngish chap from among the group of fishers.
When asked whether they thought the marina would give them jobs, again the young fisher spoke u, “We were given the same talk when the nearby 5-star was supposed to come up. Where are the jobs for us there?”
The others also spoke up and said that they were not qualified for the jobs that a marina would offer, and as such prefer to stick to what they knew and loved best: fishing.
When asked about the public hearing on November 2, the fishers said that it was all very well for the government and other departments to sit in their offices and decide things, but that they requested the Chief Minister himself to visit their hamlet before taking any decision, or even take the deliberations forward.
They also unanimously said that not a single person from the team of marina promoters had come down to their hamlet to talk to them, or ask them whether they needed, or wanted, the marina. They are around 1,000 villagers in Nauxim they said, and no one had spoken to a single family.
After our interaction, we drove around the village looking at the not-so-posh, but homely homes of the fishing community of Nauxim. I had this sinking feeling in my heart, because what if this little part of my Goa is lost forever, because of the ‘Monaco dream’ of someone who can never love Goa as much as the fishers of Nauxim.
