Let me admit that
intention of me writing this blog is a soft way of fundraising for one of the Non
profit organizations I am associated with (NSNA) and in particular for H&H committee.
I liked one of the initiatives they have undertaken that of planting trees and
I would like to promote and spread the word to more people. I realized my
friends in FB are spread across the globe and wanted to pen my thoughts on
India’s hot weather and the need for planting more and more trees. In fact the
timing of this blog comes up at a time where H&H team is doing their 2nd
project of Tree planting in Rayavaram, a village in Chettinad.
I
cannot talk for whole of India but it is no brainer that everyone knows Tamil
Nadu is hot during summer. In fact I used to cautiously avoid India trips
during March, April or May but destiny had other plans and 2018 is one year I
had to experience entire Summer which seem to be never ending like a mega
serial. Since I am experiencing this weather after nearly 12-13 years my body
just couldn’t adjust to this and I had problems like vomiting, giddiness etc.,
Don’t mistake me that I am having symptoms of an expecting mother …let’s not
disturb nature’s way of operation. I got dehydrated umpteen number of times and
I have never had this many number of juices in my life and my deodorant bills
can match the costs of lipsticks bills used by an air hostess. Actually I
shouldn’t complain since I feel I am blessed to escape the scorching heat
through artificial ways but my heart goes out to all the street vendors who had
to toil day in and day out to make both the ends meet.
Temperatures cross 40 degree Celsius is
becoming common and people had to grapple with heat waves every now and then. Now
the question is, what makes Tamil Nadu very hot? Technically Tamil Nadu is
closer to the equator which is again closer to the sun and hence we could face
severe heat climate. But for a layman simple explanation could be due to the
poor rainfall which is mainly due to deforestation. Now people want to cover
land with concrete and we see more and more trees being cut down. Due to this we
see more and more greenhouse gases to be released in atmosphere and by cutting
down trees there is less water in the air to be returned to the soil. This in
turn causes drier soil by making it unfertile for growing crops. Soil is often
eroded too due to deforestation. Now all of us want our kids to go to Montessori,
study at IIT/MIT/Stanford etc., which is good but have we ever thought what
kind of environment they will be living in. Global warming is on the rise and
environmental hazards keep increasing in every country and unfortunately Environmental
awareness is coming down.
Now
let us take a closer look at what HH team has done for their first project in
Nattarasankottai, a chettinad village. They chose a team and planted close roughly
170 + trees. They made sure plants are tall enough which makes it easy for maintenance
and also made sure each plant gets a fencing. They will also be watering the
plants twice a week. There is lots of costs involved in every step and on top
of costs there is lot of physical labor involved which makes the process a
physically exhaustive one. But this initiative will be standing tall and will
speak volumes even after many years. Now after successfully finishing their
first project they will be planting trees in Rayavaram on June 28th
(2nd project) and will be moving onto Virachalai and other chettinad
towns too. Since they have a framework and dedicated volunteers assigned for
this initiative they can capitalize on their start and really do more and more
towns based on the sponsors and that is where I wanted to pitch in and promote
this initiative.
Now I have just talked about Chetiinad towns
but we need Trees pretty much everywhere and you could be a member of Tamil
sangam, part of Temple organization or for that matter be part of any Non profit
organization in your city. Organization’s vision would be to promote culture
and tradition based on the NPO you are associated with and you may wonder how can
we contribute. See “Humanitarian” is a very broad term and anything and
everything can be fitted into “Humanitarian” since we are all human beings first.
If there is a flood in Chennai all of us joined hands and that was under
humanitarian basis; similarly you can have a separate stream called ‘Humanitarian’
and start planting trees in your hometown through the organization you are
associated with. NSNA would be for nagarathars living in USA but for others you
could talk to your respective NPO heads and tie up with a local association
back home. As far as costs it would roughly costs Rs. 500 (includes the cost of
the plant, pit cutting, bud formation, fencing, supporting poles and labor) per
plant. For watering the planting twice a week there is again costs involved but
should be few thousands depending on how many trees we need to water.
Where does people settle down is beyond scope
of this blog but giving back to community and giving back to where you hail
from, giving back to place where you lived and where your parents are living
will make you a RICH person. As a NRI you could be contributing to community in
many different ways, just treat planting trees as one another item in your list
since that is need of the hour. If you happen to be a nagarathar living in USA
I would request you to consider sponsoring for this initiative by that way we
can have more and more trees planted in our natives and make Chettinad GREEN.
I also feel like sharing the below video which is one of my
favorite scene:
