Of Porpoises and Plastic...

Our boat is a sad looking thing, peeling paint and rotten rafters. It must be an old one, I tell myself. In contrast to the aging boat, our boatmen are young. Very young. Locals from the banks of the Chilika.One is in class nine and the other in class ten, as they tell us later. Babu and Raja. Fiesty little men who handle the boat confidently, laughing with much amusement when we voice our fears at being sailed around by two underage kids in the vast and beautiful Chilika Lake in Odisha. They handle the boat and us like pros, their confidence boosted by Dad in an orange lungi following us protectively behind in another tourist laden boat.

We are on the trail of the Chilika dolphins. Chilika's dolphins are the Irrawady fresh water dolphins, Orcaella brevirostris: silver, snub-nosed and as cute as the bottlenosed dolphins of the oceans. They are though, not quite freshwater, living in the brackish waters of estuaries and are classified as 'vulnerable' with respect to their conservation status. We spot them after much questing, a brief view of a pair swooping in and out of the gray sea. Happy nevertheless, we return.

After an interesting ride over the choppy grey lake dotted with bamboo poles sticking out through its surface like Bhishma's bed of arrows, a few hungry seagulls, hoards of crows trying to negotiate the windy skies between two islands we reach a thin patch of land called Sea Mouth. We are to have lunch here in one of  the numerous palm thatched shacks. After the haggling over  the price and size of prawns is done, the cook tells us to walk over the opposite edge of the island for a view of The Bay of Bengal.

"Six minute to and six minutes fro" he tells us helpfully. "When you come back, lunch would be ready!"

We walk up a sandy path between rows of discarded plastic bottles, plastic wrappers, thermocol plates and thousands of coconut hulls, to the edge of the dune. Here we are rewarded with a view of a virgin beach and the deep turquoise Bay of Bengal surging at its Eastern edge. The golden beach is smooth and the waves perfect, topped by pure white surf and we are kids once again as we enter the water, giggling in chorus with the white surf.

After almost half an hour we are dragged reluctant out of the sea, like petulant kids on the verge of a tantrum, back to the shack for lunch. To compensate, this is a grand affair: mounds of rice, a yellow sea of mung daal with burnt jeera and slices of tomatoes floating in it, mashed potatoes, a single papad, tangy mixed vegetable pickle and of course the chef's special of succulent Chilika prawns in a violent red curry with explosive capabilities equalling that of an IED.

I am freshening up, standing by one of the wooden tables and as I brush my hair I look around. The little sand island, hardly 200 metres in breadth is pockmarked with mounds of plastic waste and empty coconut shells. Runners of hyacinth (well, it looks like hyacinth) on the sand bloom with guthkha wrappers, thermocol glasses and used nappies instead of pale purple flowers. The baby waves that lap the river side of Sea Mouth brings in more rubbish that tangles in the sand shrubs and remains, festooning the river beach with a garland of junk.
I find myself getting annoyed with an impotent indignation that needs urgent vent. The two young men, our boatmen sitting at the next table are easy victims.

 " What is all this?" I point to the dump next to the shack.

Raja smiles apologetically.

"Garbage."

"What about Swachh Bharat?" Derision drips like hot candle wax from my voice.

"You know about Swachh Bharat?"

The boy nods. He does. His class nine is at the local government school.
"Yes." He know it well.

I enquire again.
"So what's this?"

"Aswachh Bharat!" The boy replies.
No, he is not being funny. His voice is resigned.

But Babu, the tenth grader who looks like he is in class six is not one to get cowed down so easily...
"We collect these bottles and sell them to recycle. See..."
He shows me a sack full of plastic water bottles.
Somewhat mollified, I go on.
"You must tell these tourists not to throw rubbish like this. This rubbish will get washed away into the sea and choke your dolphins.........."
The boys listen intently, their keen eyes upon my face.
I go on.
"When you grow up and own your own boats, if this pollution continues unchecked, who knows whether there will be any dolphins left to roam your Chilika......."

I am aware I am full of hyperbole but it is all I can do.......dress my words with drama to sieze attention..

Two pairs of eyes follow my face and the desperation that I lace it with throws shadows on theirs.

"No tourists will like to come here then....."

I leave my words hanging like a portent in the salt heavy air.The boys look away meditatively, Raju into the distance and Babu at his sack of PET bottles.

That afternoon as I ride Raja and Babu's blue boat with its peeling paint and torn tarpaulin back to Satpada, I hope earnestly that my two bit words would not get blown away like Lay wrappers in the sea breeze or float away like Coke bottles at high tide....

Hope that one day if I am fortunate to return to this picturesque Sea Mouth where the river embraces the ocean, I'd find that a shrewd politician's nationalistic campaign for a clean country merged with a young people's dreams for a better future has worked to return Sea Mouth as Nature had intended it to be: clean, pristine, unsullied by human hands...


PS : There are other environmental issues plaguing coastal Odisha such as diesel boats on the Chilika destroying the Orcaella's habitat but I chose to write about this issue of littering of sea beaches because it is something that we as tourists are guilty of and something that we can stop easily if we have the will to do it. And I feel it is the locals who can play a major part in instilling this behavioural change in the tourists that visit them.