Every time you bump into him, he’s doing something new, something exciting and
something that definitely benefits Goa in some way or the other. Meet Vishal
Rawlley, the man of many talents and head over heels in love with Goa.
He is a maker of things. He is Mr. Fixit.
He is the man you call when you need some form of innovation, some
improvisation, some science and learning that not just solves but puts a smile
on your face too. From boats to robots, treehouses to floating gardens, Vishal
has made it all and in the process, made Goa his chosen playground.
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Before he first landed here at the turn of
the century, Rawlley, a filmmaker and designer, was an urban creature from
Mumbai. His first move to the sunny state was impulsive. He barely knew
anything about the place. He just arrived; a young boy in his early twenties
ready to see and feel the real Goa. That stint though, lasted three years. Work
and life took him back to Mumbai and then Delhi; the thought of eventually
returning one day always parked at the back of his head. Seven years ago he
moved back to Goa.
“I had things I wanted to do and needed
the space for those ideas to take shape.”
Vishal grew up in a small town in Odisha,
surrounded by lakes and rivers where he reminisces going for family picnics.
There is a natural draw towards the open waters for him. There were canoe boats
of tribal fishermen around and he learned to row at a very young age. The love
for boats go back to that phase of his life.
“I wanted to make my own boat when I was 14, I finally made it
when I was 41.” His first was a pontoon boat – a light and sturdy craft, but
tad bulky.
As fate would have it, Vishal got anopportunity to conduct an
‘emergency boat making workshop’ with a bunch of architecture students working
on a conceptual flood disaster rehabilitation plan. This was a hugely
successful workshop and was repeated several times over with different batches
of students in different colleges. Different boat designs were tried out in
these workshops using all sorts of recycled materials – barrels and bamboos,
crates and drums, plastic bottles and wooden planks.
From this engagement Vishal evolved what he now dubs the ‘Red
Boat’.“It is the simplest and cheapest boat in the world”, he proclaims with a
boastful smile. It probably is! An origami inspired creation, made by folding a
thin red metal roofing sheet like paper – made at home using simple tools. In
theory, a paper boat made with metal.
The idea of boating goes a long way back, Rawlley explains. It’s
the simplicity of it that attracts him. “It was the first vehicle man had. It
dates back to the prehistoric era. The oldest recovered boat is a dugout canoe
that can be dated to 8000 BC. The bicycle, on the other hand, was invented in
the 1800s.” “Early man rode canoes, but the earliest bicycle rider wore silly
Victorian clothing – top hat and tailcoats – remember those funny old cycles
with large wheels?”. Clearly his knowledge and passion for boats is one of its
kind.
Vishal is attracted to the Goan backwaters like none other. He
basks in the joy of discovering newpristine places every time he sets sail.
Surrounded by wetlands and swamps these mazes are inaccessible by road. “You
feel lost, floating in silence on sun-dappled waters… Surrounded by thick mangroves
with no sign of civilisation, you can witness unadulterated nature.”
On a recent trip accompanying Vishal, I realise these are not
places that an explorer needs to discover. Most of his favoured spots are
within a fifteen minutes drive from Panjim, where he stays. The surroundings
are serene no doubt, however the visible plastic pollution all over is painful
to experience. Ask him about it and one sees a remarkably different side to
Vishal…angry! He feels for this unheeded garbage and disposal menace and
tries to contribute every step of the day on a regular basis.
His ‘Red Boat’ has been put to good use when Vishal used it to
clean up a portion of the St. Inez Creek. Three years ago he won an Art Grant
that gave him a chance to work on a long term community engagement program.
Using the boat he, along with the children from the local community, cleaned up
the floating debris in the waterbody and installed a floating garden there.
“The creek, that is more in the news for being a polluted mess, got a new
facelift in this area. It became a fun space for the kids to go boating, have a
floating platform to climb on to and make interesting installations for
Narkasura, Christmas and Ganapati celebrations. As the garden bloomed, it
attracted birds and butterflies. The bioremediation properties of the garden
allowed the aquatic life to thrive. A family of otters became residents in the
area. The most thrilling experience was when a crocodile showed up and decided
to bask on the floating garden,” beams Rawlley.
His boats have facilitated the most amazing encounters with
nature for Vishal – to watch exotic birds in the wetlands, to discover sea
creatures in tidal pools, to go fishing in various kinds of waterbodies, to
discover the traditional system of Khazan lands that date back thousands of
years. “The secret of how Goa thrived as a self sufficient sustainable
socio-economic system is revealed in these experiences,” reasons Vishal. “It is
a misfortune that we have forgotten these time-tested systems and are imposing
a completely destructive model of development.”
“There is a breed of Goans who will fight to death to save their
beautiful motherland,” avers Vishal. “I have a retired gentleman work alongside
me erecting floating gardens and engaging children in clean-up drives with the
energy of a warrior, I have a lady environmentalists who has waded into water,
dug into muck and climbed trees with me to show me fascinating aspects of
nature, I have had the warm generosity of local fishermen and farmers sharing
with me their their fresh fish catch and farm produce.”
In his own way Vishal is giving back to Goa that has given him a
lot. He teaches a course in Environmental Studies at a local college. He is
part of the Biodiversity Management Committee of his Panchayat and contributes
a considerable amount of his time to social causes.
On most weekends Vishal goes out boating with friends and fun
enthusiasts. He has an open invitation for whoever is interested to join him.
Until he finally decides to build personal boats on order, one will have to
share a spot with him on one of his many inventions.
You
can find out all about Vishal’s boating plans on Facebook as Red Boat Goa.
