Saturday, August 16, 2008

~ 61st Independence Day ~

Of all the Independence Day's that I have celebrated, 61st Independence Day has been most satisfying & worthy. It started when Venky told me about his friend, Lokapriya's plan of afforestation on Thursday night. The plan was to plant 250 saplings in the region of Savandurga.

15 adults along with 4 children met @ 7:30hrs near Malleshwaram & ventured out to Savandurga via Mysore Road by 8:30hrs. After a brief pit-stop for breakfast in Bidadi for some special 'Tattee Idli' (a variation of Idli), we continued our journey towards Magadi.

We arrived @ Savandurga by 11:00hrs and few folks visited the Narashima Temple. Then entered the forest region of Savandurga, that's where the plot was chosen by Lokapriya for the plantation. We did ask for the school boys who were in the region to join us in our mission, but they didn't seem to be keen. 250 pits were dug couple of days prior to our arrival.

Finally, 13 of us with 3 locals started off our task of planting 250 saplings. The team was divided into groups - movers, uncoverers, planters - for better optimization. 6 movers, including me, who moved the saplings to the designated pits; 3 uncoverers, helped in uncovering the plastic bags which held the saplings; 4 planters, finally performed the last task of the plantation.

After the initial enthusiasm of moving the saplings, my forearms began to ache. The saplings had soaked in the rain from previous night, making it heavier to carry. But, that didn't deter our focus & goal, we finished planting by 15:00hrs.

Had our lunch & bhel-puri enjoying the back drop of the Savandurga. We left Savandurga @ 16:30hrs towards Bangalore en route Manchinbele reservoir (the same place where KRV/Police busted a Rave party on Friday night). The kids had good time playing in the water.

We departed Manchinbele to the city @ 18:25hrs, with another pit-stop for some hot tea & aloo bonda @ the Big Banyan Tree.

On our way home we saw two huge dish antennas near-by to the big banyan tree. Me & Venky were discussing about what project could this part of, in an isolated place off Mysore Road. We finally concluded that this could be a part of ISRO, tracking something. To my surprise in the morning it turned out to be part of ISRO for the upcoming Chandrayaan, which appeared in TOI.

1 comment:

NaVoX said...

Not bad, a one day outing coupled with planting trees, but is someone going to take care of it as and when it grows or how is it?? And who funded this thingy???