वसंत ऋतुराज, नवा हा वर्षारंभ, सृष्टी ही आनंदाने, बहरली…
त्यामागे येतो ग्रीष्म त्याचे हो दोन मास पहिली सर त्यात बरसली…
आली हो वर्षा राणी, गाऊया हर्ष गाणी सृष्टीने हिरवाई नेसलेली…
चांदणे घेऊनी हा, शरद आला बघा, सोबत आली आई, आदिशक्ती…
चाहूल हेमांताची, लागते साऱ्यांनाच, येई हो जेव्हा थंडी, थोडी थोडी…
शिशिर कडाक्याने, अंग हे गारठले, अगोठी जागोजागी, पेटलेली…
वर्षाचे बारा मास, त्यात हे सहा ऋतू, समान संख्या पहा, वाटलेली…
In Maharashtra, we believe that year starts with the month of Hindu calendar Chaitra and goes on for twelve months ending at Falgun (aka, fagun in Hindi). Traditionally, these twelve months are devided in 6 seasons, Vasant (blossoms / spring), Grishma (Season of first rain), Varsha (rains), Sharad (Season of abundance), Hemant (mild winter), Shishir (Chilling time).
I have tried explaining these seasons in this poem. Hope you like it. Let me know in the comments bellow.
This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter. You can find my other entries to this campaign here.
Today, I would like to introduce you all to a very old friend of mine, practically the first one in my life. Sarang Ganoo, a master product designer, is a very lively person. He specializes in industrial and strategic designs and is keen to make the products which will last in today’s world of “Use and Throw”. Now he has taken his passion to create something sustainable to a next level and dived into the field of urban farming. Currently he is working as a designer and builder at ‘The Urban Farm.’ I have chatted with him about his views about urban farming and composting specifically for this article. This will definitely take the Clean will Win message a step forward! So, here’s our conversation for you all!
Aditya: What is ‘The Urban Farm’?
Sarang: At The Urban Farm, we want to create tools such as a composting system for your small house kitchens or a range of balcony planter systems which helps you grow edible foods in cities. We want to make farming in urban areas simple for all people.
Aditya: Why composting? And how does it work in rooftop / urban farming?
Sarang: Indian city‘s generate one of the highest levels of organic waste in the entire world. In India Chennai generates the highest organic waste every day. 64% of city waste is organic waste. This problem can be tackled at every home regardless of how big or small and how much space they have. Hence composting. Composting makes your organic waste into an amazing organic soil. 102 home compost system, designed and developed by urban farm is the ideal out-of-the-box companion to start your composting journey.
Once you start composting you will have fertile organic soil at home. Once you start having really good organic soil at home the most general next step is to think about how we can grow food in the soil. And that’s what people do once they start having compost at home. They start thinking maybe I can start growing chilies or tomatoes at home and that’s how the revolution starts. And that is how it is connected to urban farming.
Aditya: What’s so special about 102 Home Compost?
Sarang: Specialty of 102 home compost is that it is the easiest home compost system in the market. How it works is- in a kit you get three fabric bags, 2.5 kg of coconut fiber, a stand and a tray with soil-make powder as an enzyme. To do the composting one needs to put 1 inch of coconut fiber underneath in the bag. After that you put your daily organic waste preferably chopped into less than 1 inch pieces at the end of the day. You spread just a spoonful of soil-make powder on top of the organic waste. Cover this entire thing with 1 inch of coconut fiber again. After layering this you just have to keep layering exactly like this until the bag is full. Once full, keep it aside for 20 days and whoa of your home mountain like soil is ready!
The Urban Farm team
Wall of their rooftop farm
The lush greens of The Urban Farm
Sarang enjoying his farming
Aditya: I heard that there’s a setup on your roof where you grow green leafy on water? What’s that? And how did you get into it?
Sarang: It’s called Hydroponics. It is a method by which one can use only water and nutrients and micronutrients solution together to grow edible plants. Hydroponics works only with green leafy vegetables. We have done lots of hydroponic farming on our rooftop farm. We realised that it’s a great method to start something easy. However, it is not that suitable to grow large amounts of vegetables very profitably in a climate like India. We even have ample resources such as sunlight and fertile soil available all across the year. Yet, we believe that Hydroponics has a very good potential to be an additional source of income for lots of people living in the cities.
Aditya: Is it the next “in thing” or the need of an hour?
Sarang: Right now people are at home and they have realised the importance of nature around them. Many people have started growing some sort of flower plants as well as some sort of edible plants in their balconies. And I think people are now getting the hang of it. I hope that this trend grows more so that it helps us in making a sustainable future for nutrients and great food available across the city for everyone.
Aditya: ‘The Urban Farm’ is promoting both soil based and water based farming, isn’t it kind of contradictory?
Sarang: Not at all. Each method has its own place in the larger scheme of things. Because of climate change we need to make sure that we have enough good nutrient food preferably without too much GMO available to the larger population. I think methods like hydroponics do help in some ways to achieve that.
Aditya: Tell me one thing which people of our age should change as a step towards sustainable living.
Sarang: One thing people of our age can start doing is start composting their own organic waste at home. Do not expect your city to take away your organic waste. It is you who has generated the waste and you are responsible for making sure that it doesn’t go to the landfills and pollute our environment in the city!
Let’s enjoy seashores of the west coast of India and the beauty of Western Ghats as we cross Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra to enter the state of Gujarat. Today, our destination is the one and only abode of Asiatic Lions. Our country is blessed with various geo-climatic conditions. As a result, a wide range of habitats are developed. There are vast grasslands like Banni, evergreen forests in North-Eastern states, riparian forests on the banks of the rivers, mangroves like Sundarban in West Bengal and many more. The forest in Gir Wildlife Sanctuary is a mix of dry scrub land and open deciduous forest.
Story Time:
In the 1900s when Nawabs of Junagadh ruled the lands around the forest, they had kept it as their private hunting grounds. It was the time when the number of Asiatic Lions had dropped to an alarming state. Only about a dozen of them were remaining in India. Then British Viceroy brought this to the attention of Nawabs. Understanding the importance of lions, Nawab banned the hunting of lions. By 1920 numbers had improved to 50 lions and by 1936, it increased dramatically to 250 animals.
After the independence of India, administration continued to follow the same policies of its predecessors of Junagadh State and in 1965, it became the notified wildlife sanctuary. In 1975, Government declared the area of 150 sq. km. as a National Park and later expanded to 259 sq. km in 1978. Followed by this in 1984, they declared the surrounding area as a wildlife sanctuary creating today’s expanse of Gir Lion Reserve with National Park at core.
Asiatic Lion, the king of the jungle
Nilgai at Gir by Gaurika Wijeratne
Chital in Gir National Park
Grey langoor at Gir by Gaurika Wijeratne
Asiatic Lion at Gir by Gaurika Wijeratne
Wealth of Gir Reserve:
When last counted in 2015, there were 523 asiatic lions living in and around Gir Lion Reserve. However, if you think this is the only beast living in this forest, you are too far of the mark. Hundreds species of plants have created this forest which is a house to more than 38 species of mammals including Asiatic lion, Indian leopard, jungle cat, striped hyena, golden jackal, Bengal fox in carnivores group, and herbivores like chital, nilgai, sambar, chawsingha, chinkara and wild boar. Over 300 species of birds and 37 species of reptiles have also made Gir Lion Reserve as their home.
Maldharis, a tribe of cattle-herders, also used to call this sanctuary their home with few settlements in the region. Even after barricading their settlements by thorns, they used to lose a few of their livestocks frequently. Subsequently, they were rehabilitated outside the National Park boundary. Because of this re-settlement, the regeneration of degraded forest took place and prey density improved.
Today, Gir is the only abode of Asiatic Lions. Let’s take care of our environment and try to live sustainable lives and hope the endangerment of species is avoided.
I am participating in A2Z challenge with Blogchatter and this is my take on day 7 challenge. “G is for the Gir Lion Reserve, Gujrat”. You can find my other posts from this challenge here.
Water is a very basic requirement of a human body to survive as well as do many other day-to-day activities. This has led to the development of settlements along the rivers or the other types of water bodies. You might have read this in my last post about Rights of Rivers. We all know about the glorious days of Sindhu Valley Civilization, Egyptian Civilization from the valley of the great River Nile, etc. Even in today’s world we see important cities associated with the rivers they rely on. Delhi is on the banks of Yamuna. Pune is on the confluence of rivers Mula and Mutha. Shanghai has River Yangtze while London has River Thames and Los Angeles has River Los Angeles with them. Today, let’s talk more about the rivers. How do they gather this huge amount of water? Let’s talk about watersheds.
What is a watershed?
Rivers draw their water from the area around them which is separated by a kind of ring of high elevation terrain like hills, mountains etc. This ring of hills or mountains forms a basin for the river which acts like a natural bowl. It keeps sending the water from its edge to the bottom of it. The line dividing this bowl from the adjacent one is called a ridgeline (Watershed boundary in the illustration). You can easily understand this with the image I have attached here.
With the vast spread of over 3.28 million square kilometers, India has several river basins. Sindhu basin, Ganga Basin, Brahmaputra Basin up in north to Kaveri Basin in South and Narmada and Tapi basins in west to Mahanadi in east and Godavari and Krishna in central India are some of the major river basins. In addition to these, there are hundreds of small river basins all across our 7500+ km coastline.
When we consider local areas surrounding our cities, there are small hills and hillocks surrounding the city. These hills create micro-watersheds forming streams and nallas which subsequently merge in major rivers somewhere down the line. These micro-watersheds are very important for the city’s local climate and rainfall etc. They provide vital ecosystem services. The forest on hills acts as a carbon sink reducing the city’s carbon footprint.
Nowadays, Indian cities are witnessing uncontrolled sprawl of construction driven by the forces of greed. We have cut and quarried hills and hillocks for stone and earth leaving them deforested. Streams and Nallas are leveled with construction debris, etc. We have built buildings on hills and streams ultimately choking the natural drainage leading to the destruction of our micro-watersheds.
Because of these unchecked and uncontrolled actions, cities are witnessing flooding of roads, flash floods in rivers and streams since the last 10-15 years. If we do not straighten our act, our cities are going to face water scarcity, irregular rainfalls and more and more flash floods on our roads. It’s time for us to stand for our surroundings, our neighbourhood and houses. Every drop makes an ocean, if everyone in our cities starts taking care of our neighbourhood, and so, we’ll automatically take care of our cities.
