3. Going Green.

OK... now I have slacked off again for a long time... Having promised to write about the tree plantation drive a long time back, here I am.. Better late than never, right?

Last Saturday(21st June 2008), having owed a lot for a long time to Mother Nature, I finally got a chance to repay her. I had gone for a tree plantation drive as part of the community affair events organised by the company where I work. We were a group of about 20 people who decided to forgo their saturday morning siesta, to spend a few hours getting their hands dirty, but for a noble cause. We had got in touch with an organisation called "Trees For Free". They are kind of like the facilitators between the ones who want to plant trees and the ones who want to get trees planted. Not just that, they have their own volunteer base for planting saplings in and around Bangalore. For more information and for volunteering for them, take a look at www.treesforfree.org. The place where we were supposed to plant the saplings, was the campus of "People for Animals". This place is a rehabilitation center for rescued animals, birds and reptiles from Bangalore. Here, they are nursed back to health and then released into the wild. While talking to the veterinary doctor there, one comment made by him really set me thinking about the impact we are having on the wildlife in the country. He said " Nowadays we keep hearing incidents about 'monkey menace' in many cities. What we dont realise is that we are a menace for them. Had we not encroached upon their natural habitat, they would not have entered our living areas." If anyone is interested in joining them or has a love for wildlife and nature, please get in touch with them on www.pfabangalore.org.

So thats the background information about the two organisations we dealt with that day. Actually the guys from PFA had made our task very easy. They had about 160 pits ready for use. We just had to collect the saplings from their office, go the respective sites allocated for the fruit, flowering and medicinal trees, and plant them. I was a bit disappointed at not being able to actually dig the pits too. But, it was still quite an effort to plant all the available saplings. We spent almost two hours doing it. In the end, we even had to carry huge water containers and water the saplings. One of the sites was close to the compund wall of the BGS global hospital. It was more like a garbage dump and I am a bit concerned about the safety and well-being of the saplings that were planted there. Seeing the amount of plastic waste lying around, we decided to do an impromptu plastic collection drive. We filled up two huge bags with loads of plastic litter. The PFA fellows assured us that they would dispose it off properly. They even sponsored lunch for all of us, at the nearby hospital canteen. For the first time in my life, I actually felt that hospital food is edible.

We had done a fund raising drive in office for the event. Out of the money collected, we paid some to "Trees for Free" for the saplings. The rest, we intend to use for similar events in the months to come. All along, it was a fun filled event. And we also got to do our part in saving the earth.. :)