Save Nandi Hills
On slogging Sunday morning, amidst lazy cold weather, i woke up early at 7:00, washed my face in chilled weather, got ready and started my journey to Nandi Hills. Little i knew about the time, i was there at Nandi Hills at 9:00 (partly my riding style, partly sleeping while riding :)). I knew i was going to do something different, something worth to carry an ownership and something for a good cause.
I got an internal mail circulation a week ago of cleaning the Nandi Hills, organized by Bangalore Mountaineering Club, BMC. The date was set on July 1st, environment day and they needed volunteers to pick up trash (Non-Biodegradable products like Glass and Plastic) from Nandi hills.
I went inside and the network was erratic, showing zero or full signal and vice versa faster than F1 cars. BMC team was an hour late to schedule (following Indian Standard Time!!!) and i tripped whole hill in search of them with hopeless network till they arrived.
First Lesson: No network, Full dependence on your intuition.
No Daddy, No Mummy for help. Redefining the proverb, i can say, life is wireless (instead of wired) to technology.
Then, the team came at 10:15AM, we had a pleasant meeting, there was a foreigner by name Sitamma, religious name change, who came to volunteer “Save Nandi”. She was around 55 years old bustling with divine energy. She adopted 18 village students and is giving free education to students near Doddaballapura.
On slogging Sunday morning, amidst lazy cold weather, i woke up early at 7:00, washed my face in chilled weather, got ready and started my journey to Nandi Hills. Little i knew about the time, i was there at Nandi Hills at 9:00 (partly my riding style, partly sleeping while riding :)). I knew i was going to do something different, something worth to carry an ownership and something for a good cause.
I got an internal mail circulation a week ago of cleaning the Nandi Hills, organized by Bangalore Mountaineering Club, BMC. The date was set on July 1st, environment day and they needed volunteers to pick up trash (Non-Biodegradable products like Glass and Plastic) from Nandi hills.
I went inside and the network was erratic, showing zero or full signal and vice versa faster than F1 cars. BMC team was an hour late to schedule (following Indian Standard Time!!!) and i tripped whole hill in search of them with hopeless network till they arrived.
First Lesson: No network, Full dependence on your intuition.
No Daddy, No Mummy for help. Redefining the proverb, i can say, life is wireless (instead of wired) to technology.
Then, the team came at 10:15AM, we had a pleasant meeting, there was a foreigner by name Sitamma, religious name change, who came to volunteer “Save Nandi”. She was around 55 years old bustling with divine energy. She adopted 18 village students and is giving free education to students near Doddaballapura.
Second Lesson: Service is factor of willingness to do good and mental attitude not physical age.
When ever i think of social action, i always think in top level, just like a dream where things automatically falls in place as i wish so, just like Rajnikanth movies. In reality it’s otherwise, constant set backs at every stage of the path which we have to smile and face it.
Soon, the team came and gave a brief introduction of the work previously done and what’s presently the situation and action plans. I was amazed to hear that the team was successful in creating the Banergatta wildlife park a plastic free zone. There were astonishing 75 volunteers who joined the group with many corporate actively participating. BMC distributed Bin bags, hand gloves, masks for safety while removal of trash. The target was set with collection of minimum of 140 bags.
The motto was clear with everybody: “To make our Nandi Hills a plastic litter free Zone”.
We formed a small group of 9 people, called ourselves “NANDI NINE” with lot of Enthu. We started picking up trash after trash after trash and an hour after found ourselves deep into woods. We alone collected approximately 25 bags of trash in morning. This was a unique experience as i was trekking as well as collecting trash. I could smell the fresh deep forest air and get reenergized, not to mention that scenery were equally splendid. I saw some exotic creatures like snails, multi-colored caterpillars, small chirping birds, colorful lizards and frogs. I had visited Nandi Hills before but i didn’t see its natural beauty, flora and fauna. The whole experience was simply enriching.
Lesson three: If you want to appreciate nature, do something before it’s too late.
I am not saying that the moment you read this mail, pick a garbage bag and start cleaning. But participate in these events, where you get to know many people who share similar thoughts with you. Doing things like these creates a sense of ownership with nature you can happily cherish.
We were almost in the inaccessible places and still found many plastics and liquor bottles. Damn!!! Screw these guys who come to Nandi Hills. These maniacs are like allopathic medicines; they appreciate the nature and leave their side effects ever after. I think if one can check the bags and cars at entrance, the officials can arrest these practices.
Lesson four: Judge People by their attitude towards nature.
According to me, there are 2 castes in India, The upper caste who maintain cleanliness and who doesn’t are the lower caste. It is us who have to educate ourselves and guide others constantly. There was one interesting example i noticed last time during trip, a car came and stopped momentarily, beggar begged in front of car, the owner gave him some money and then threw cool drink plastic bottle on the spot. The beggar came and collected the bottle and threw it in dustbin and started begging again. I earlier disrespected him for his profession, now suddenly respect emerged ever high for his behavior and character.
After the good afternoon lunch sponsored by BMC, we were again back to work. We went near Tippu sultan fort and we stumbled across a place where i think its drinkers paradise. In an area of 100sqft we found around 150 bottles. Needless to say, 8 bags, 30kgs only from glass bottles. A moment we thought if we would employ some rag pickers, they could easily make a comfortable leaving picking these bottles. But there were broken glasses all over the place. I could just understand their plight that day where they have to make a living only by rag picking without luxury of boots, gloves, face mask we had.
Lesson five: We are blessed
We have to really appreciate ourselves that we are not doing rag picking job. We have to appreciate that we are still better offs and stop cribbing and blaming the society. Many say, We should do this and this to the society to gather some attention to their talks while in groups. But rarely one does so. And those who don’t want to do, create an negative aura among in the group thinking its cheap, low class... My question to them is do they really have a class?!!!.
After all the works done, i then returned back to Bangalore, cherishing the wonderful time with BMC organization members, NANDI NINE, Sitamma and Nature. I miss the hurricane like forceful winds at Tippu drop. Then came to my home expecting the a dialogue from my mom “For all the struggle to put u through engineering and completing it, you now are rag picker!!!”, but she said “I am proud of you”.
And that said it all...
