It does not qualify to be called a bus stand. It resembles an open toilet on the eastern side and a cowshed on the western side. The neuter gender referred here is the Kadamba Bus Stand, the major bus stand catering for both intra state and interstate passenger traffic where people from different corners of Goa, especially South Goa including domestic and foreign tourists converge to continue their journey further.
Journeying in a public transport or driving down the road in the early morning from the remote villages, amidst the meadows, the lush green and golden paddy fields, and hills on either side, past the swaying coconut trees (or coconut grass?), breathing the fresh morning air of the country side, you descend at the so called Margão KTC bus stand to continue your journey further. And what a sight to behold! It is a paradigm shift.
No sooner you alight at this place called KTC Bus Stand, the accumulated garbage greets you, muck thrown all around welcomes you and the unbearable nauseating stench emanating from around is a ‘treat’ to your olfactory sense. In spite of there being a Pay Toilet, conductors and drivers of both private and KTC buses and also the general public are seen urinating just next to the pay toilet openly in full public view oblivious of any shame and embarrassment, defying all norms of morality, surpassing all limits of decency and throwing civic sense and hygiene in the wind.
That is not all. Enter the shed where hundreds of students, office goers, tourists both domestic and foreign gather to continue their journey. This shed is nothing short of a cowshed, or even worse. Cows, bulls and calves squatting, cow dung, cow’s urine, faeces of dogs and humans, food left over by migrants and domestic tourists, white tea cups and empty plastic bottles thrown about, plastic bags and empty packets of ‘Lays’ and ‘Kurkure’ in different colours flying around, young and old migrant beggars with infants harassing the public, schizophrenics wandering about, beggars sleeping, some on the floor and others on the concrete benches, is all that pervades in this ‘cowshed’. Stray dogs in groups, barking and attacking each other and scarring the passengers standing in queue are a major threat to life of passengers.
A little ahead lies the inter-state bus stand which is an eye sore. Empty beer cans, plastic and other broken bottles are thrown about. Drivers and other staff of inter-state buses are seen cooking, bathing, etc. And urinating and defecating in the open.
A stranger especially a foreigner (tourist) at this so called bus stand is most likely to get confused and wonder whether it is a bus stand or a bus stand cum open toilet cum cowshed. Will the authorities concerned take a note of this? Does the general public at the KTC bus stand not deserve a decent surrounding free from pollution and filth?
