I recently visited the famous spring of South Goa, the monsoon special -- Udear Spring -- located at the beautiful village of Verna. I have grown up visiting this spring with my friends every monsoon and have only good memories to cherish about this beautiful spring.
I thought of taking my 10 years old son to see the place where we visited to enjoy little bit of adventure as kids ourselves. But unfortunately, the visit was not a pleasant one. The place was not really a place I would take my son to visit and enjoy anymore as I did as a kid myself.
I wanted my son to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and experience the beauty of waterfalls of this beautiful village of Verna during the monsoon. The beautiful falls did flow majestically but it was marred by ugly and unpleasant behaviour of the drunk revellers present at the spot. They were all dancing with their beer cans and liquor bottles right in the middle of the water falls. Is that what I expected my little son to experience? Simply, no!
Those people drinking and smoking is not my business. My concern is about turning these beautiful village spots of nature meant to be used by public to experience joy and peace into something that allows drinking and smoking and dancing in the water with bottles and food is really shameful and painful. And the plastic cups, plates and bottles and the discarded food packets in plastic bags all around the spring was an eyesore.
Care must be taken to see that the public place is used with much respect for the nature and for everyone else who visit the waterfalls.
Since the main waterfall was in bad shape I thought of taking my son to the other smaller waterfalls in the village on the Verna-Loutolim road, which are beautiful too during the monsoon. But to my surprise all these smaller spots too were taken up by the drunk guests. I had to bring my son back home in utter disappointment.
An Indian tourist asked for the location of the waterfall at Uddear as I was standing on the road to return back home. He was with his family. And I was lost of words to direct him to the main waterfall since it was not an appropriate place for a family to visit at that moment.
Can such unruly behaviour be avoided? Can anyone take up the responsibility to maintain these beautiful village spots? Can the villagers take up the initiative to preserve the beauty of these places from the drunk revellers? Can the police be little more sensitive to the issue?
When I asked one of my friends who leads a social and political network in the area, he told me that despite letter to the police department there is no proper patrolling being done. But, can we just leave the matter there and allow the monsoon beauty of the village to fall into the hands of drunkards?
My son witnessed a man lying unconscious in his own vomit that day. Are we waiting to witness death at the foot of waterfall due to such unacceptable behaviour of the visitors? Will the concern authority and villagers act immediately?