25 to the other
conductor only to find that there was no "other conductor", only a
clever cheat who had taken me for a ride while the bus was still
stationary. I had to shell out another 18 rupees for my journey to the
Croc Bank! What I found hard to accept was that the man was able to
cheat me in front of all those passengers sitting in the bus. No one
thought to tell me that he was not the real conductor.
This time I stayed at the Croc Bank only for a week as Rom, Harry and
everyone else on the farm were leaving for Kerala to continue with the
National Geographic film programme and there was little else I could do
at the Croc Bank with everyone away.
Chapter 13: Surveying a Forest
The summer vacation that year was great fun. My cousins from Belgaum
arrived on schedule and since no one had Board exams that year the
holiday season began in the first week of April itself. We would enjoy
two whole months of the sea, swimming as often as we could in the river
that joins the sea at Baga.
One morning in May my dad asked me whether I'd like to participate in a
project that the Goa Foundation, an environment organisation of which
my dad is Executive Secretary, was organising for college students. I
agreed. The project turned out to be field visits to the forests in
Betim in order to identify which areas were still forest, which areas
had been cut down and by whom, which projects/constructions had come
up, and so on.
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