ERWIN FONSECA
ASSAGAO: Now in her sixties, Ujwala is a familiar figure at the Sonarkhet Temple, where she sits every Thursday selling flowers and garlands. A widow with one daughter, she has never
allowed adversity to slow her down. Despite facing health issues, Ujwala continues to work with quiet
determination. “A sense of commitment to work keeps ailments away,” she says. Her income from flower sales, though modest, is sufficient to meet her daily needs, thanks to a frugal lifestyle.
Born into a farming family, Ujwala moved to Assagao after marriage. It was alongside her late husband that she first began venturing into the forests surrounding the village. Over time, the practice of foraging became an essential part of her seasonal routine—especially in the months between March and May, when forests offer up an abundance of edible produce. While she once travelled as far as Calangute to sell her forest finds—using a direct bus that connected Siolim to the beach belt—rising transport costs eventually made those trips unsustainable. “Even when each packet fetched just two rupees, we worked hard to pluck and sell,” she recalls. “But when bus fares began to eat into our earnings, we stopped going.”
Since then, Ujwala has remained rooted in Assagao, selling her wares locally. She has watched prices rise over the years—from Rs 2 to Rs 50 a leaf packet—but has also seen the forests undergo stark changes. “Earlier, they were cleaner, safer. Even a girl could go alone to pluck cashews or berries. Today, it’s different,” she says. Once-abundant wild spaces are shrinking under pressure from illegal encroachments, commercial activities, and neglect. “People suddenly fence off forest land with barbed wire, cutting off access. The forest is being grabbed piece by piece.”
She points to the Assagao hill as a case in point. “Twenty years ago, there was talk of starting the Ingo night market there. Then a murder took place. Now the area is strewn with garbage, liquor bottles, and broken glass,” she says. “Young boys go there to drink. The place stinks. It’s no longer the forest I once knew.”
For Ujwala, the decline is not just environmental but deeply personal. Forests have been her workplace, her source of income, and her place of refuge. She worries about the future of wild species and local forest produce. “Earlier, you could see wild rabbits and foxes in these parts. Now there are none. Jambhul trees were once plentiful—we’d just pluck and eat. Today, they’re so rare that the fruit is expensive in the market. The Forest Department is planting acacia, which kills off other trees. Why not plant native species?”
She speaks with clarity and without bitterness, only concern for what is being lost. “Forests have given us so much. But if we don’t protect them now, soon they—and everything they offer—will
vanish.”