Lesson named Irshalwadi Disaster!!

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“Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster” ... Elon Musk

Well, no need to introduce this name yet Mr Elon Musk is American Billionaire Businessman & creator of Electric Car Tesla, & now owner of World’s Expression Platform (sarcastic) i.e., Twitter & with due respect to his own disastrous approach to work (or life) yet no two minds about his intelligence, which get reflected from his above quote! Reason for this quote is obviously a disaster which actually people may call an accident or mishap but the outcome was disastrous (just like Musk’s decisions at work) & as usual we are witnessing the show by the entire society about it. Fortunately, this time political parties didn’t blame each other for the disaster (at least until now), maybe they all are busy in dealing with a disaster on their own political front but focus is on help & rescue for now! And the incident is a landslide which wiped the entire wadi (group of small hutments, smaller than village) in Sahyadri range of mountains, part of western ghat range, named Irshalwadi. Till now nearly thirty people are confirmed dead & more than hundred are still missing. For those who don’t read newspapers or read, only news of their interest, two days back at night due to heavy rains, part of hill or land got separated & crashed on the hutments on its sloping side or say base of slope & as most of the villagers were sleeping, they just didn’t realize what has hit them. The place is in remote parts of the mountains though in Raigad District but the only way to reach there is on foot for the last near five to six km distance (well, there still such places exist even in 2023). It’s raining throughout the time making the rescue mission near impossible which our system (read as govt as well all involved in helping) is doing with full efforts yet the entire thing is post operation & hardly any survivors were there.

My subject of sharing is not to doubt the way rescue mission is being done or blame but to ask the question to entire society, why we must wait for a disaster to happen to display how useless we are in anticipating such disaster & our attitude towards it even when it happened as there is news in media about Disaster Tourism (new terminology), wow, we can commercialize anything, even death! As in the name of help or say excitement or to have some adventures trip thousands of people are visiting the disaster site making the actual working people difficult to work on rescue mission & Collector has to declare a Curfew over there for non-official people visiting Irshalwadi! What kind of society we are really within, I wonder & then this attitude (read as ignorance) about non-seriousness of the mishap isn’t uncommon as even after any road accident, many people are busy in taking photos or selfies to upload on social media than helping the victims or personals who are actually working for it!  And the problem lies right within our education which doesn’t make us sensitive from our childhood to any such aspect of life where ours or other people’s lives are at stake! First, let’s understand what a disaster means, & I am not referring to the Oxford dictionary but the way we use the term. Disaster is something an event or act or incidence which leaves a drastic effect on the surrounding at large where this incidence happens & mostly the effect is in the bad interest of that surrounding. Here the surrounding includes living objects (including humans) as well non-living things too, which are destroyed or get suffered in the act/ incident causing the disaster. This act can be triggered by human error(usually) or because of nature’s outburst such as hurricane or tsunami or earthquake but as I said, in all these situations its destruction & damage which we call a disaster after such an act.

Now, coming to our object of sharing, if a disaster is due to sheer by nature’s anger such as tsunami or earthquake then we can blame only our bad-luck but when the action behind a disaster is induced to some human error as well when we neglect warnings of nature then the real cause of disaster is always some human or group of humans, which is the main aspect of recent disaster I wanted to point out. As few years back similar land slide has happened in the same mountain ranges, name of the deceased village then was Malin & nearly 100 plus human lives (and domestic animals) has lost but we have learnt nothing (sorry to say) & in such case responsibility of the disaster is not of nature but we the humans only! As agreed, all these villages & bastis (wadi) are settled all along the mountain ranges for hundreds of years but look at the damage we have done to earth in the last few decades, reasons of which are unplanned urbanization, uncontrolled population & our ignorant approach towards nature conservation! As no disaster (barring earthquake or volcano) is caused overnight, it does give warnings as well the final act of nature also is like retaliation or buckling down under the constant encroachment of humans on it in various forms such as reclamation of oceans or digging for mins or deforestation or changing course of rivers & many such!

And especially the recent one at Irshalwadi types, with keeping all due respect to authorities as well the deceased residents, agreed for many years all these settlements are safely living at their respective location but population has increased, so has needs & then nature also takes toll on the surroundings. Entire Sahyadri region has always been used to having heavy rainfalls & we never know or understand how damaging water can be so it’s always better to keep an alert eye as well as be cautious. Time & again environmentalists as well engineers have given warnings about our way of handling not just developments or growth but even our lifestyle attitude towards nature can lead us to disaster, which we are witnessing. There are two ways to handle any disaster, one is to avoid or delay it & another is to face it in such a way that there will be very less or minimal damage. In recent times with the help of technology we have been successful in saving many lives while facing disasters such as floods, especially hurricanes or storms along the coasts but we are big failures on fronts to predict as well stop & act rightly when it’s a disaster like Irshalwadi! Right from locating such spots/places where landslides & floods can cause damage to relocate its residents, many things have been neglected & this is not the case of just some villages at remote places scattered all across the Western Ghats but right in our Pune city also. Look at the slums/illegal homes settled along the slopes of Parvati hills right in the centre of Pune & same is the scene with most of the hills in & around Pune & compare it with Irshlawadi disaster & even a small kid will tell we are living on a disaster time bomb which is ticking loudly but we are deaf to it neither we can see the burning fuse of this time bomb! This attitude of ours, is my sharing’s objective as while on one side we are launching satellites in the space to keep track of natural calamities but what we are doing with the calamities which can happen right in front of our eyes, what are we waiting for to take action to stop another disaster or series of disasters!

On one side govt is busy defending illegal settlements where disaster can strike any time but do mind when any disaster hits you, it doesn’t think whether the structures are legal or illegal, it wipes out everything that is responsible & even not-responsible for the cause! Nature, as I said above, never acts in vengeance however, we mistreat (read as insult) it, all nature does to our acts is, just react & unfortunately the outcome of that reaction is usually a disaster! We are yet stuck with step one itself i.e., identifying places where likely disaster can happen so to think about stopping or avoiding it & to train the society to face the disaster seems like Mungerilal ke Sapane! As may it be Malin landslide or Irsahlwadi, the very basic problem was even to reach there for any help or rescue, so how are we going to train the residents of such spots to face such disaster, as they only are the ones who can help themselves. Where is the training team in place & who has stopped us (read as govt) to at least reach out for all such settlements & take their basic training for facing a disaster, even at Parvati Hill slums also! Why not there can be a satellite, especially to keep a twenty-four-hour eye on all such locations, so we don’t have to rely on someone to reach up after any disaster & then we start to reach the spot. On one side we are talking about AI (Artificial Intelligence & not Air India) & on other side we (again read as govt) confess helplessness in managing our resources because of physical conditions at disaster site, baat kuch hajam nahi huai! This doesn’t mean I am neglecting site conditions & difficulties faced by the rescue team at site, they did & are doing a great job but that doesn’t or won’t save the lives in future also as its post disaster action, right? There is so called Disaster Management team, but not once I have heard any capable officer being posted there like Force 10, which has been formed after Mumbai Terror attacks as this is similar case, though the attacker is not a terrorist nor its intentions are to spread fear but unfortunately the acts cause same effect on the society at large! Thousands of people living in places like Irshalwadi may be having sleepless nights now thinking next will be their turn for landslides or floods & only because we are failing to give them a right system in place to face the disaster, is my object of sharing!

Every time, like the Police used to come at last in Hindi movies, when any disaster strikes, we (read as society, not just govt) start a show named disaster management & by the time we end our show the next disaster is already ready to make a bigger strike, is a sad story! Right from cutting forests to diverting rivers to protecting illegal settlements built by damaging natural habitats to ignoring basics like rain water harvesting & executing development plans without making nature as part of development, we are making disasters by ourselves & then blaming nature for the same; unless we won’t accept this fact & then correct ourselves, Irshalwadi wasn’t the first disaster of its kind & definitely won’t be last, mind it!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

Take your issues to Hon PM at link below..

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Success Story of Water Self Sufficiency @ Yashwin Jiwan Orchid, Sus

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“Water, a thoroughly underrated drink.”… Wayne Gerard Trotman

Wayne Gerard Lionel Trotman is a British-Trinidadian award-winning writer, filmmaker, artist, photographer, composer, and producer of electronic music; no wonder, a man with such versatile talents only, can describe things like water in so few words! Though, of late even the Punekars who could have been the object of above remarks of Wayne are now realizing to give due respect to water as population is increasing & sources or the water are same yet there are many (read as Punekars) who not only think having water in abundance is their birthright but even to waste it also! Frankly speaking, three topics I have decided not to write or share or even think about, in Pune; one is, our State’s Urban Development Policies, second is, Traffic/ Public Transport in Pune & third is, Water! Though I know then I will have to stop writing & this is also true that my writing (read as frustration a times) about these three topics may not change anything about them yet somewhere someone may start thinking & change, this simple (foolish) thought makes me break my vows & then this time I am writing about water as the subject is some positive & nicer story, again a rare thing, so be it!

First thing is, I get an opportunity to work on Ground Water Committee (or Cell) established by PMC & it’s really a good step that finally the system (not just PMC) has awaken about this very important aspect or source in water demand of the citizens as well there are many learned, experienced people along on this committee, so it’s very good exposure for me as an individual civil engg. also! At the same time two more things happened, one was, this year the summer got extended till entire June without a drop of rains & causing water scarcity even in central parts of Pune (read as Pune region, PMC, PCMC & PMRDA). As usual the newspapers were happy printing tanker stories & nexus of politicians with water black marketers as well lakhs of rupees societies spending for water etc. etc. Second incidence is like breeze in the summer & main reason of my will to sharing about water & that is, water story in one of our completed projects in Sus, a fast-growing western suburb of Pune which recently has become part of PMC & was in PMRDA earlier! Now please don’t ask me details of what “now in PMC & earlier PMRDA” means, as that will make me break my second vow of not writing about Urban development policies, so maybe sometime later about it; in nutshell, Sus is a suburb which though is part of PMC, yet there is no proper infrastructure of water supply distribution (till now) & most of the societies are dependant on water tankers as well ground water (bore wells) as only source of water, & so are many suburbs of Pune.

Fortunately, Pune region has good ground water levels & as agriculture is becoming less, the pumping of groundwater is also less making it sufficient for domestic purposes. But, this was the situation till last decade with the speed of urbanization & poor distribution of water supply & most importantly our negligent attitude towards rainwater which in turn becomes part of ground water, the situation of ground water supply as source, is grave (read as bad) now! In many areas bore wells are going dry & even if you go to 200 ft plus depth yet the water inflow of the well is very small which isn’t enough even for drinking & in central parts the quality of bore well water is very poor i.e., polluted due to various reasons such as drainage water contamination, various chemicals flowing along from the vehicles fuels leaks & such, making use of bore well water impossible for domestic purpose! And on top of it something which we all know but nobody does nothing (which is a reason I have decided to stop sharing about it) i.e., rampant concretization all around the city & reducing green cover or big trees, both things affecting ground water quantity as well quality directly! As we have hard paved all the surfaces, this makes whatever rain water fall on these areas directly get in contact with chemicals, dirt on these surfaces & flows along with it to storage tanks (so called rain water tanks or pits). Had this water fallen on earth surface then it would have travelled through various layers which acts like physical & chemical filters thus making its quality better. As well there is no percolation of rainwater which earlier was evenly distributed all around the city thus making the aquifers (natural water storages formed underground) go dry, that’s why no more water is available for bore wells. At the same time under the name of development (re-development too) we have cut down many big trees thus reducing the water holding capacity of the soil as well filtration capacity too, which adds to the reduction in ground water levels. There is a law of planting at least three numbers of trees when you cut one big tree but first how many follow such laws & second how many such trees actually get lived actually & third what about the rains & its percolation in ground till these trees will once again grow big! All these factors are directly related to groundwater charging & as I said, who cares as all expect the government (read as PMC) to supply them with whatever water, whatsoever they need!

On such a background when we built Yashwin Jiwan Orchid @ Sus, Pune, a society of nearly 210 plus homes, we have right from the beginning decided to make the society self-sufficient on the front of water needs. And fortunately, we had enough space available, so all we needed was some in depth study, planning & execution, which we did & today after five years of possession, there isn’t a single water tanker required till today (touchwood) in the society. I think we are successful to our satisfaction in our efforts to build a society where rain water in combination with ground water & recycled water along with proper tree cover will take care of water needs of the society & make it self-sufficient even in summers, which it did!  What we did is, have two open wells, one at the entrance & one at the rear end (its rectangular plot with front side narrower than length) & then planned the project in such a way that every drop of rain water will flow towards these two wells. And we have three intermediate bore wells also by studying Hydro-Geotech (soil study system) structure of the land of the project & connected all these wells with a pumping system. At the same time, we have planted nearly 200 plus indigenous trees all around the boundary of the project all of them properly nurtured & grown big (we made them adopted by every flat holder with name board of the family adjoining the respective tree), all these tree’s roots helped a lot in increasing water retaining capacity of the soil which in return helped to charge the wells as well aquifers!

At the same time, we have treated recycled drainage water which when in excess (in monsoons) we again used to charge the aquifers as well the open wells by letting that water after treatment, in these wells, which we retreat before use up-to required chemical levels! Most importantly we made the resident explain what we have done & why as right from maintaining the trees to periodical cleaning of the rain water chambers & filters to pumping systems to keeping the premise clean, everything mattered for the success of making the society self-sufficient on water front & this is not possible without the residents disciplined attitude towards the subject! As well they have to be freed from the myths or say taboo of rejecting the use of recycled water or well water for daily needs as that is equally important i.e. the mindset of the residents towards the water supply. In fact, the figures show the well water after treatment is near match to Bisleri (read as bottled water) as its double filtered, one by nature (earth) & secondly by machines! I won't go much into the figures but in summarizing my statement just take this in account, the entire land of Yashwin Jiwan Orchid would have nearly 15 crore liters of water (in rainfall form) in a year with Pune’s average rainfall of 30 inches per year, while the society needs approximately 5 crore liters of water per year (as per WHO norms) & if not a single litre of water has been taken from outside in last five years, our mission ground + rain water is fairly successful & with 200 plus trees have grown big which provides home for many birds too, what more we could have hoped for!

It's such stories which help me to pull myself out of frustration & reminds me, there is still hope for nature at large as when you save water & use it in the proper way then you will be able to conserve not just humans but many species along which are equal part of this system! And this is what we should replicate all around Pune & every urban centre instead blindly following some pattern of development. As well understand what you want to achieve while you go for any development & let’s reduce our greed for consuming more FSI a bit. Even the govt which tells developers to adopt rainwater & such things itself should self-analyze, as look at what you see around, every inch of roads & surroundings are hard paved with no space for water to percolate in ground but only through some rain water chambers which also are blocked all the yearlong! This concreting/hard paving all around also takes away space for grass, insects which in turn reduces butterflies & sparrows like birds making your city a concrete jungle! Do remember, rain water/ ground water systems can’t be cut-pasted from one place to another but very locally implemented & that is not impossible! Today, when I visit Yashwin Jiwan Orchid & meet happy faces of the residents (even in Summer) & I see birds, butterflies, squirrels dancing on the Jamun & Neem trees, I think this is what a society should be, where everybody has its right space, even a single drop of rainwater too, adios with this satisfied feeling!

(Sharing contact details of office bearers of Yashwin Jiwan Orchid  Soc, Mr Shastri & Mr Mule, as well our team for any assistance you need on the subject.

Mr Shastri – 09822463687/ Mr Mule – 00822979690,

sales@sanjeevanideve.com )

You can check all the details of this story in visual form at the link below…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjeevani_developers/albums/72177720309891298/with/53057155319/

 

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

Take your issues to Hon PM at link below..

https://secure.mygov.in/

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com / https://junglebelles.in/

Decoding "Baipan Bhari Deva" !

 

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“The worst & toughest enemy to defeat for any woman is mostly a woman & she resides right within the woman only” …

This is not a quote but a statement or say a thought, which came to my mind after watching a Marathi movie named “Baipan Bhari Dewa” which I will use as BBD as short-form here after to save some typing efforts & I am super happy for this sharing as it is about a Marathi movie & core subject of which is very much part of our Maharashtrian Tradition or say culture i.e., Mangala Gaur! Well, those who are non-Maharashtrians & those who are millennium kids (who do not know or don’t give a damn about such traditions) for them, Mangala Gaur is a festival (event for many) which is celebrated by women, mostly married women by coming together on the auspicious day. This includes folk songs (taking digs at the relationships on husbands’ side), games, dance & Ukhane i.e., rhyming with name of husband included in it & many such. Traditionally Mangala Gaur event is supposed to be participated by the newly-wed & married women only but our culture is large hearted enough to accommodate widows too as well any woman irrespective of caste, age, or religion! The basic concept is, earlier the women who were not exposed to the outer world much & didn't get an opportunity to open-up freely (unwinding themselves) can have some fun & is like a stress buster time in our modern corporate culture terminology.  It is a very much traditional Maharashtrian festival & is being celebrated all across the cities, towns & villages too & is deep rooted in local culture!

Now, if you have been enlightened about the Mangala Gaur then let’s see how this occasion has been wonderfully used in the movie. By the way, Mangala Gaur has been used in one of the recent block-buster & big budget movie Bajirao-Mastani with big names like Ranveer singh, Priyanka Chopra & Deepika Padukone, & one item song (well, that’s only term I can use, sorry if it has offended anybody’s emotions) was also there on the occasion of Mangala Gaur with two heroines gyrating on the tune of folk song “Pinga ga bai Pinga,” that’s all I can say about it! Why BBD is different because in one of the rarest times here is a movie which perfectly understands purpose of the festivals like Mangala Gaur, a hundred percent “Desi” thing with story of women build around the festival for the women & in the process makes us understand not only the philosophy of Mangal gaur but makes us think about the role of women at large in the society! Going ahead a step, the movie’s story is an eye opener not for the men but for the women, that is the success of BBD by me & that’s why I took this subject! I am not a movie critic, rather I am of strong opinion of critics as no one has the right to criticize a piece of art in any form because that's the creation of someone else & who are we to name it as good or bad, right? But I can say we can decode the message in that piece of work (read as an art) when it’s a movie or a book & share it as not all those who read or watch can understand the soul of that work, this is my personal view & cleared it as I am not writing to tell you this to judge BBD but to make you know what I have understood from it!

BBD starts also in a typical Hollywood Trend with making you a trip past, to start & then makes you meet with individual characters of which main are, six sisters with an age gap approx. twenty years between the eldest & the youngest siblings, a thing which today’s genre may laugh at but some fifty years back it was normal! Obviously, there is a generation gap between even the real sisters as if the youngest one represents today’s (2023) woman i.e., used to all the modern gadgets & means of communication then the elder ones are still restricted to basics such as calling and messaging only even with the best of the cell phone! As I mentioned, the story starts with celebrations of BBD of these sisters from the birth (of the youngest sibling) i.e., some forty years back & tells us about the bonding they shared & family-tree painted on a blackboard tell us about the way things have gone today. And camera takes us to the present day (just the way MI movies do, please don’t ask its long-form) & here is the real beauty, as Mangala Gaurs are long gone so have gone the sisters bonding as well the years have not just make them age but taken them away from each other’s to such extent that two of the sisters which are working together in a bank behaves with each other as senior & junior staffers, rarely making themselves realize that they are blood sisters! This is where the movie starts telling us about the relationships especially of the women & the stresses of surroundings, they allow it to take toll on them making them forget to share warmth of a wonderful relationship like sisterhood!

As the story unfolds, we get to know the present of all the six sisters & the facts about their respective life with one common thread, none of them is happy or at peace & here is where every woman watching this movie can relate with one of the sister’s characters. As one of them is depressed because she is childless & has been cast away in young age by same age other women. One sister is unhappy because her married daughter is more attached to her Mother-in-Law than the mother & one sister is going through divorce at the age of fifty something as her husband who has chosen her over her sister (again past) for her look now has fallen for a younger girl in his life. One sister is married in a wealthy family but has been always taunted for doing nothing & spending husband’s money so she craves self-respect. Fifth one is married in an orthodox family where she has to surrender her singing passion & doing a job under her younger sister as boss & live a life under constant fear of an ever unhappy & angry father-in-Law & the youngest one is at good post , working but with  a useless, lazy husband who does nothing yet expects his wife to support his laziness!

Now you will say what’s big deal, this happens all around us & there must be millions of women in our society which can resemble with these characters; well, that is the success of the movie BBD! And the best part is, none of these sisters accept that they are having problems in dealing with their respective lives & something can be done about it! Neither they have someone to reach out & share their stress (read as problems) as the bonding between the sisters has long lost for many reasons, most of which are the outcome of distrust as well miscommunication & question is who will take the lead & bridge the gap in the relationship! Here is where Mangala Gaur festival ropes in as one of the sisters to pamper her ego decides to participate in Mangala Gaur competition & again only because she couldn’t find team for doing so, she thinks of her sisters & one by one for individual reasons they join the team & once again all sisters are together on one platform after nearly three decades!  Time has already damaged them physically as well mentally & it’s coming together of the sisters which makes them realize what they were actually missing! One by one the barriers which every sister has built by herself around her breaks down & the story moves ahead.

Best part of BBD is, even the supporting men’s characters also have chosen thoughtfully as they are part of the story yet they are behind the scene for most of the time, it’s their presence in the minds of these women makes us realize the burdens or say nature of their relationships with the opposite-sex they are dealing (or living) with! Slowly the story unfolds & we come to know the real woman behind the face of every sister’s character, & in the process she herself starts knowing her better. As usual (a fact which I personally see around with many women) every sister has shown refusing to have any problem in the life & trying to show everything is normal & fine with her which isn’t the case & in the process gets unhappy, stressed all the time! As the sisters starts meeting more often & frequently for the Mangala Gaur competition practice, they start opening with each other, something they have been missing all these years & that’s what gives them courage or strength to fight with their individual problems, this is the best part of BBD! As may it be dealing with family front , kids, work, irrational men around or dealing with your own past, all you need is someone to share your fears, pain, hurt, past & who better than your real sister for this there can be, as she is part of your past too! And so, the sisters make each other their strength & start dealing with their present to regain not only their childhood bonding but more importantly their own self! The intelligence of the Director of the movie is felt all along, as it’s not been felt necessary to declare the result of the competition & showing the sister’s team as winner as what they really won is their own identity & ability to deal with their problems which is more worthy than any trophy or prize money! Here one more thing for the women who gets thrilled after watching BBD, as do mind, regaining yourself & being able to live your own life doesn’t mean to run away from  your responsibilities or give up the duty & break all relationships, what it means is, only you can balance your happiness with the stresses with ease, that is what life is about!

To conclude, as I have thought of the starting statement about women being the worst enemy of the woman & allowing that enemy to reside within her, there is another side of BBD too! There is a woman within you which can be your best friend too, as it’s how you treat the woman within yourself, will only decide what she becomes for you, your worst enemy or your best friend and “Baipan Bhari Dewa” makes you realize this very basic fact of womanhood, is what I have understood about it, so it’s up to you women, what you make of it, adios with this note!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

Take your issues to Hon PM at link below..

https://secure.mygov.in/

Think Green, Think Life

Monsoon Magic of Tadoba Buffers & Wildlife Tourism!

 

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-“Some people walk in the rain; others just get wet.”
― Roger Miller

Roger Dean Miller Sr. was an American singer-songwriter, widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and has to his credit many chart-topping country and pop from the mid-1960s Nashville sound era.  This must be probably the most famous quote about rains & in so simple words it makes us understand our (most of ours) attitude towards life as well nature at large, as we all know importance of the rains yet when it’s getting out in the rains, most feel its nuisance as you get wet, while just a few can actually walk in the rains to enjoy it as part of nature! The reason I chose this quote is my monsoon trip to tadoba & let me tell you in advance & frankly that I too doesn’t like rains much especially getting wet  when venturing out & in the forests its more difficult (read as irritating) as the gypsy covered with hood is a pain with camera in your hand, fog on your spects & if in case you sight any activity then to get right angle & ability to click is more stressful, making you more frustrated! And this is exactly what I thought of sharing about visiting wildlife in monsoon, that all these are facts yet you can enjoy the forests which are at their best & can open up many wonderful sights which in other seasons are hidden from us!

First & foremost, a myth that you don’t get to see tigers in the rains as well all parks are closed in the monsoon (rains), out of this both myths are fifty percent true & will explain how that is! Most project tigers are closed in monsoon but it’s the core part which is closed & buffers are open & in the present situation. tiger population in buffer is more i.e., area of forest where human movement with some restrictions is allowed & so of the tigers. Buffers are also rich in diversity, most project tigers have large buffer areas such as Tadoba has got nearly eighteen plus numbers of buffer entry gates, so you can visit forests in rains also. In core i.e., central part of the parks, road conditions may be bad because of heavy rains while in buffers as human movement is allowed so their roads are in better condition, this is why such policy & it has nothing to do with privacy of the animals as many tigers in the core areas keep moving in & out & they do visit buffer forests regularly as these borders are for humans & not for the tigers. In the nutshell, you can visit the parks in rains also. Coming to the second myth, you don’t get to see tigers in rains, well, this also is true but again fifty percent as in the rains also a tiger must hunt to feed itself as well mark his or her territory, rather more frequent & during such moments you can see a tiger even in the rains. Hunting most of us can imagine but marking of territory means defining ownership of certain part of the forest & is a basic characteristic of the tigers & it’s done in many ways few of them is, urinating at certain spots (usually trees) & this scent of individual tiger is different which makes other tigers know whose area is this. And it’s in the rains more frequently this urine marking fades off so the tiger has to move around more to keep its territory marked regularly & thus you can get to see a tiger in the rains. Though in the monsoon the green cover is thicker & denser so unless the tiger comes on road or in low lying grass, it’s difficult to sight it than in summer, this is why the chances of seeing a tiger in the rains are lesser than other seasons, but you do get to see for sure with little bit luck & some driving around!

And then if you are done with your doubts about seeing  tigers in monsoon (what else) then we will go ahead about the main aspect of this sharing i.e., magic of this rainy season in tadoba, especially buffers which are rich with flora & fauna! First of all, when you enter the forest what you notice is, greens & every shade of it along with a fragrance fresh & filled with the greens around & butterflies, lots of them of every size & colour!  This is a sight which you may not be able to see in summers as at this time of the year (I presume) the butterflies blooming time i.e., their journey from caterpillar to butterfly state & everywhere you can see them dancing with fresh coloured wings. Another sight is of bird’s nesting which again is something you won’t be able to see in the summers or winters. Monsoon forests gives you two advantages; first, many birds like Paradise Fly Catcher or Drongos or Woodpeckers, which usually keep continuously moving (read as jumping or flying) & makes it difficult to click them or watch them at length, you get to see them sitting at nest by turn i.e., male & female & second, you get to learn wonderful world of bird’s nests! As a Civil Eng (that too a builder) by myself, I am always fascinated by other specie’s (other than humans) ability to build their homes with so much limited resource & during my this tadoba monsoon trip I get to not only click Paradise Fly Catcher but to study its home i.e., nest! First, what caught my eye is size, it's much smaller in comparison to the long tail of the bird, which is its trademark & then the way it has been built. The nest was whitish in colour & looked water tight & was shiny, when I asked our guide (who was very well informed, Arvind of Alizanza Buffer), he said it’s been made of leaf, small branches & bonded together with spider’s sticky web strings, which gives the shiny look & makes the nest watertight! He told me that the sight of Paradise Fly Catcher sitting on the nest is called, “Miya Muthbhar, Dadhi Haatbhar” i.e., such a small nest with the owner of it having such a long tail as well as the body of the bird is also small! This is so wonderful, as imagine the time required to collect all the building material for such nest & against summer heat, rains, wind as well other birds & enemies like snakes, how much efforts these birds must have been taking to build one small nest!

Next attraction in monsoon wilderness is, reptiles which otherwise you hardly get to see in abundance as in summer due to heat most reptiles (snakes, lizards) go deep into earth to maintain their body temperature & in winters they usually prefer to eat & take long sleep to keep themselves warm. Rains bring lots of food as well fill their homes (usually gaps in earth or hollows) with water, both reasons making the reptiles come out from their cover & expose themselves to our eyes. We saw many monitor lizards of all sizes, even juveniles & climbing on trees to hunt the insects below the barks of these trees! Many tourists will say what’s big deal & what’s there to see lizards & snakes & many women even hate sight of these creatures but reptiles are very much an important link in nature keeping balance by eating insects & rodents! And then, if you don’t get to see a tiger in your city life, do you get to see a monitor lizard ever in the city, answer is No, right? Rather it's in monsoon you can observe & learn so many things which otherwise are either hidden from you because of the seasons or in pursuit of our tiger quest we ignore them!  Though, the monsoon outings of the snakes make increase in the numbers of snakebites significantly as people working in the fields & women who must go out in early morning or late evening for their natural call (a sad practice continues in rural India especially around the forests) succumbs to snake’s bite more because of these things in rains! This one thing I will repeatedly put forward from my sharing is poor or badly managed public toilets for women in the villages nearby forests. There are public toilets built by govt in the villages around buffers but no water supply to flush them nor any system to clean the sapric tanks which is a must periodically as well at many places doors have been stolen or broken making it impossible for women to use it & we must find a solution for this!! We have adopted a public toilet right in the centre of Pune at Nal Stop, karve road, we must find such solution & I will be giving proposal to forest dept for the same for one such model in any village in Tadoba Buffer, other companies & NGOs also can think of this or come-up with a solution, is my appeal to all readers!

While I was writing this piece, I came across a news report about alert given by the Wildlife Crime Prevention Wing of forest Dept, it's about probable poaching attempts at 13 Project tigers which are on the radar of poachers, mainly a gang named as Baveria Gang of a tribe from MP. And then on the WhatsApp group of some wild lifers there was a circular about rate hike in park entry fees for monsoon period, making wildlife tourism more costly for the wild lifers as well for visitors to the forests of tadoba! Guys, high-time the forest dept, so called wildlife conservationists, NGO’s, Govt system & Hon PM Mr Modi sir must open their minds about wildlife tourism (make it affordable) & open all the parks as well non-tourism zones for tourists, as only this way we can keep an eye on all the tigers (and other wildlife), which forest dept alone won’t be ever able to do! As well this can be a source of earning for every person associated with forests & lives around such as guides, staff working in resorts & many as these are eyes, ears & nose of the forests actually in the human form! In regions around Tadoba the only crop is rice & baring four months of its cultivation, the remaining eight months there is no work to people here, which we can use as licenced wildlife operators to show the wildlife outside of gate areas of these parks. This will help in keeping an eye on all illegal activities even outside of the parks as well keep all parks open even in rains as it is in this season as the poachers know that there will be no tourists watching the tigers, they increase their bad activities. One such news (whispers) around the forests is about trade of live tiger cubs, which are in great demand & many locals off the record said the cubs are being stolen & sold at a very high rate (Crore & above) in international markets & this is serious! All such aspects can be taken care of & we need to act fast as the clock is already running against wildlife at large. At the same time, we can open the world of rain magic in the wilds for thousands of tourists who have never witnessed it. And yes, I got to see wonderful display of tiger cub’s (in the rains) & their mom’s relationship as we witnessed how obedient the cubs are about instructions from the mom when she is not around! We saw three sub adult cubs of a tigress named Babli, she must have gone for hunting & has kept the cubs in a small patch of grass which has shrubs around. We could se the cubs playing behind the shrubs but not once in nearly two hours the cubs crossed the line of shrubs & came in open in front of us, as their mom must have told them not to do so, that’s how you survive in the forests, by following the rules of the jungle!

So go ahead guys, build pressure on the system for opening-up all the forests for everybody & till then do visit the forests which are open in monsoon to experience the rains in the wilderness of our country, adios, with this note!

-

Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

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