Guyz, Galz and others if any... with your permission let me take the first few lines of Charles Dicken's "Tale of 2 cities" (May not be in the same order)
It was Worst of the times. ( Great Legend Raj Kumar's Death shook blore with anti-social elements showing thier true colors) It was the Best of the times. (Come what may we have decided to go for trip to clean to Mekedattu - Nothing can shatter a good cause ) It was the Age of Wisdom.( 8 people sharing a common consensus working out for a good cause) It was the epoch of belief. ( We beleive people will get inspired and more numbers will join us in carrying our work on a larger scale.) Let me stop here with Dicken's.
For quite sometime we have been planning a trip to Clean to MekkeDattu. Series of mails exchanged , lotz of phone calls between jungle lodges and sameer. Initially the plan was to camp at Mekedattu in the night and carry the field work in the morning.Somehow it didn't work out so we shifted our gears to plan B. We decided to spend the saturday night at roopa's house and leave for mekkedattu early in the morning. Earlier in the evening at around 8.35 PM I met bindiya collected the stuff (food..lotz and lotz of food - probably enough for a 2 day trek!!!) and reached KFC CMH Road, where roopa was waiting. We were waiting for the other folks to join. Pritesh landed up exactly on time. Both Roopa and pritesh managed to get the early bird choc's from me. Soon Shamala and Dileep joined us followed by Lakshmi. There were 2 dropouts in the last moment. Thereafter we had to wait for shilpa. Her delay is accepted for she stays too far from the point where we were supposed to meet. Having realised we reached the head count we reached Roopa's House. There were some strict instructions on how to use the loo from Roopa. For people interested please land up at her
house to get to know the instrucions. Having had a cup of tea we stared the nite show with "Dumb Charades". It was a great fun moment. People got to know lot of innovative ways of dumb actions. However Shamala and myself were adjuged the best Dumbers .) for the Really @ Actually and "Oye Bubbly" for "OY" of Troy respectively. While we were having fun with DumbC's sameer joined us and he too added fuel to the fun we were having. It was almost 1.30 AM we decided to have a short nap, so that we can really (Actually) contribute during the day. It was 3.30 AM Sameer and myself got up and found that Qualis guy is gonna reach us only by 4.30. So took one more short nap...while the guyz were having naps in intervals , all the women were sleeping on a single Cot in the form of a SINE wave Finally the qualis arrived at 4.45 AM . With in few minutes we transferred whatever stuff is required for the trip.
At around 5 we headed towards Kanakpura. We reached Sangam at 7. This 2 hours of drive allowed people to recharge their batteries for they had very short hours of sleep. Soon we unloaded some amount of food, water and sticks and started our trek crossing the river. Its a 4 km Trek from Sangam to MekkeDattu. We decided to start the cleaning programme right from where we had begun. The collection amounted to 2 baggages of plastic on the way itself.
Roopa , laksmi and Myself reached MekkeDattu at around 8.30. We took rest for a while to recharge ourselves for the next course of action. Soon the rest of the folks joined us. Having given them enough time for refreshing themselves we started our part2 of cleaning. We carried out the operation for about more than 2 hours. Collected huge chunks of junks of plastic. At around 11.45 we had refreshened ourselves and had some fruits and other stuff. We had few puzzles of both PJ and X-rated Genre, for which Shamala was one of the Victim. ) Soon it was ended by a short Jive Performance by Sameer and Roopa with Roopa leading all the way...
Just before dumping the garbage into the pit out there we thought we clean up the parts around this place too. so soon the part3 of the operation followed. With in 30 minutes our folks finished cleaning that place. Finally we collected very good amount of plastic. We took few snaps with the garbage bags dumped into the pit and started our journey back to Sangam.
Since the bus which is supposed to arrive hadn't turned up (reason being forest dept on strike) we trekked back to sangam. On the way back we picked up the Garabge bags we collected initially on the way up, dumped it into the pit near Sangam. On the way back few people had the privilige of a glimpse of my Sun Dance .) Though it was quite hot but not to a greater extent we were relentlessly trekking. At around 2 PM we reached Sangam. We had good amount of Coconut water with avg being 2 coconuts per head.
Having had enough water we decided to head back to bangalore. Since few of us atleast me was looking completely toned out we stopped in the middle of the town to wash our face ofcourse after spotting the place where we can get water to do the same. Myself, Dileep and Shamala were enjoying the ride with ABA songs by singing it out loudly..while the rest were also enjoying with in themselves...ABA is Aashiq Banaya Aapne for the absolutely clueless .) We stopped once we crossed the village had food for the noon. Roopa prepared the sandwiches, while laksmi and myself doing the cutlery job. Had to settle the accounts since few of the folks wanted to get down on their way. Shamala was the first person to get down, followed by Pritesh and then Shilpa. We reached roopa's house where dileep and lakshmi dispersed. Sameer, Roopa and myself exchanged few thoughts about the trip. distributed the left over stuff among ourselves. After that me and sameer departed to where we belong to.
Before i proceed to Lighter amounts and take aways from the trip, Here are Laksmi's thought's in her own words :
Guys/gals i must tell you the job you did the first time around had been really good. In comparison to last time, the place was less dirty. Of course since it is summer, there were lot of water bottles and pepsi cups. Of course the pan parag and kure-kure numbers were not far behind too. Great work to the team who got into cleaning right from where we started walking towards Mekedatu.
Some Lighter Moments :
Team work displayed by the folks is just phenomenonal. Great Going folks. Special acknowledgements to Sameer for arranging the Qualis at that odd hour of the day. We appreciate efforts by Dileep and Pritesh for joining us for the first time. Cheers for everyone else who made it for the trip. I hope everybody enjoyed the trip. Though the effort we spent is drop in an ocean, probably more and more groups will get inspired and more droplets of efforts will spent thereby making atleast these few good sights of nature plastic free.
Nothing in this meant to be offensive.(My disclaimer)
Looking forward for more people to volunteer.
Cheers
Vijay Kumar Yenne
It was Worst of the times. ( Great Legend Raj Kumar's Death shook blore with anti-social elements showing thier true colors) It was the Best of the times. (Come what may we have decided to go for trip to clean to Mekedattu - Nothing can shatter a good cause ) It was the Age of Wisdom.( 8 people sharing a common consensus working out for a good cause) It was the epoch of belief. ( We beleive people will get inspired and more numbers will join us in carrying our work on a larger scale.) Let me stop here with Dicken's.
For quite sometime we have been planning a trip to Clean to MekkeDattu. Series of mails exchanged , lotz of phone calls between jungle lodges and sameer. Initially the plan was to camp at Mekedattu in the night and carry the field work in the morning.Somehow it didn't work out so we shifted our gears to plan B. We decided to spend the saturday night at roopa's house and leave for mekkedattu early in the morning. Earlier in the evening at around 8.35 PM I met bindiya collected the stuff (food..lotz and lotz of food - probably enough for a 2 day trek!!!) and reached KFC CMH Road, where roopa was waiting. We were waiting for the other folks to join. Pritesh landed up exactly on time. Both Roopa and pritesh managed to get the early bird choc's from me. Soon Shamala and Dileep joined us followed by Lakshmi. There were 2 dropouts in the last moment. Thereafter we had to wait for shilpa. Her delay is accepted for she stays too far from the point where we were supposed to meet. Having realised we reached the head count we reached Roopa's House. There were some strict instructions on how to use the loo from Roopa. For people interested please land up at her
house to get to know the instrucions. Having had a cup of tea we stared the nite show with "Dumb Charades". It was a great fun moment. People got to know lot of innovative ways of dumb actions. However Shamala and myself were adjuged the best Dumbers .) for the Really @ Actually and "Oye Bubbly" for "OY" of Troy respectively. While we were having fun with DumbC's sameer joined us and he too added fuel to the fun we were having. It was almost 1.30 AM we decided to have a short nap, so that we can really (Actually) contribute during the day. It was 3.30 AM Sameer and myself got up and found that Qualis guy is gonna reach us only by 4.30. So took one more short nap...while the guyz were having naps in intervals , all the women were sleeping on a single Cot in the form of a SINE wave Finally the qualis arrived at 4.45 AM . With in few minutes we transferred whatever stuff is required for the trip.
At around 5 we headed towards Kanakpura. We reached Sangam at 7. This 2 hours of drive allowed people to recharge their batteries for they had very short hours of sleep. Soon we unloaded some amount of food, water and sticks and started our trek crossing the river. Its a 4 km Trek from Sangam to MekkeDattu. We decided to start the cleaning programme right from where we had begun. The collection amounted to 2 baggages of plastic on the way itself.
Roopa , laksmi and Myself reached MekkeDattu at around 8.30. We took rest for a while to recharge ourselves for the next course of action. Soon the rest of the folks joined us. Having given them enough time for refreshing themselves we started our part2 of cleaning. We carried out the operation for about more than 2 hours. Collected huge chunks of junks of plastic. At around 11.45 we had refreshened ourselves and had some fruits and other stuff. We had few puzzles of both PJ and X-rated Genre, for which Shamala was one of the Victim. ) Soon it was ended by a short Jive Performance by Sameer and Roopa with Roopa leading all the way...
Just before dumping the garbage into the pit out there we thought we clean up the parts around this place too. so soon the part3 of the operation followed. With in 30 minutes our folks finished cleaning that place. Finally we collected very good amount of plastic. We took few snaps with the garbage bags dumped into the pit and started our journey back to Sangam.
Since the bus which is supposed to arrive hadn't turned up (reason being forest dept on strike) we trekked back to sangam. On the way back we picked up the Garabge bags we collected initially on the way up, dumped it into the pit near Sangam. On the way back few people had the privilige of a glimpse of my Sun Dance .) Though it was quite hot but not to a greater extent we were relentlessly trekking. At around 2 PM we reached Sangam. We had good amount of Coconut water with avg being 2 coconuts per head.
Having had enough water we decided to head back to bangalore. Since few of us atleast me was looking completely toned out we stopped in the middle of the town to wash our face ofcourse after spotting the place where we can get water to do the same. Myself, Dileep and Shamala were enjoying the ride with ABA songs by singing it out loudly..while the rest were also enjoying with in themselves...ABA is Aashiq Banaya Aapne for the absolutely clueless .) We stopped once we crossed the village had food for the noon. Roopa prepared the sandwiches, while laksmi and myself doing the cutlery job. Had to settle the accounts since few of the folks wanted to get down on their way. Shamala was the first person to get down, followed by Pritesh and then Shilpa. We reached roopa's house where dileep and lakshmi dispersed. Sameer, Roopa and myself exchanged few thoughts about the trip. distributed the left over stuff among ourselves. After that me and sameer departed to where we belong to.
Before i proceed to Lighter amounts and take aways from the trip, Here are Laksmi's thought's in her own words :
Guys/gals i must tell you the job you did the first time around had been really good. In comparison to last time, the place was less dirty. Of course since it is summer, there were lot of water bottles and pepsi cups. Of course the pan parag and kure-kure numbers were not far behind too. Great work to the team who got into cleaning right from where we started walking towards Mekedatu.
Some Lighter Moments :
- How to clear a session/cache when acting dumb, please ask me .)
- How to scare a monkey with your dance get to know the steps from me. Roopa n laksmi what say??
- You should have watched Shamala's facial expression when instructing few group of guyz who were there with some alcohol in the water bottles. I could see a glimpse of Medha Patkar in her. Probably these guyz who got scared and started collecting stuff and putting in the garbage (even card boards) will start "Shamala sey Bachaoo Aandolon".
- Though Shilpa is quiter among the group she concentrates on execution of the task.
- Letz avoid field work during summer and brain storm on activities that can be carried out for future.
- Come up with a cost estimate metrics (me already looking at it), since the team is already shelling out their time and energy and on top of that they have to bear the costs which at times might be slighly overhead.
- We may need to brain storm and come with a process for maintaining a central pool amount. One thing that comes right away is to collect Rs 50 per head from the group members for every trip we make, and what ever difference of amount to be taken care by the actual trip goers.
- Find out some potential sponsors (Individuals) who are very much interested in our activities but cannot dedicate time. These individuals would definitely like todo a monetary support which will add into the central pool amount. In the long run when we grow big and establish ourselves as an organization this expereince of maintianing finances will help to a great extent.
- Instead of buying food from retail stores which is amounting to be expensive, we can probably prepare minimal stuff at home , carry few cucumbers and lemons which will serve the purpose.
- Every field worker should carry a back-pack with atleast one water-bottle.
- Work out something on camping overnite which might reduce the transportaion expenses.
Team work displayed by the folks is just phenomenonal. Great Going folks. Special acknowledgements to Sameer for arranging the Qualis at that odd hour of the day. We appreciate efforts by Dileep and Pritesh for joining us for the first time. Cheers for everyone else who made it for the trip. I hope everybody enjoyed the trip. Though the effort we spent is drop in an ocean, probably more and more groups will get inspired and more droplets of efforts will spent thereby making atleast these few good sights of nature plastic free.
Nothing in this meant to be offensive.(My disclaimer)
Looking forward for more people to volunteer.
Cheers
Vijay Kumar Yenne
