Visit to Sirsi

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The trip to Sirsi was to explore western Ghats by being in the place. Each one of us had the different experience, we went to the different place and we did different things.

Yana trek -Yana is a village located in “forest of Uttara Kannada”. Which is known for its unusual rock formation. It’s located in Sahyadri mountain range of Western Ghats. The place and surrounding Hills are also known as Green forest.It was a kilometre walk from the gate til the trekking place. I felt, beautiful nature all around us, big trees with shady branches, all we could hear the nature. We walked inside and saw few birds, later we reached the rocks. I was amazed to see the beauty of the place and formation of the rocks. I was wondering “why so big why isn’t it falling?” and many other questions triggered into my mind . We started walking and soon we were inside the huge rock. We saw bats and we could feel the difference of inside sand on which we were walking and outside. How trees were formed inside left me thinking…

River Walk and Play -It was a pleasant noon. To reach river to play, we had to cross a hanging bridge. When we started walking altogether, it was shaking and that was scary. I saw down and realised that there was no pillar of the bridge. It was again a time to understand the mechanism of the bridge. Then we reached the River…. Slowly we started going inside the water, few kids were playing in the water, few were just relaxing and many of us were playing with stones and exploring in different ways.

Appiko movement with Mr Pandurang and Mr hedge -I was expecting just a small speech about Appiko movement. Mr Pandurang started with a question “The place where you are sitting means ‘place of sparrows” but did you see any any sparrows here?” This made us thinking, we all said different things like because of radiation of mobiles, cutting trees, killing, pesticides and many other things. This made us think on an impact of our actions on the environment.

And then, he shared about Appiko movement like what is it how was it started what all they did, awake whole night in forest, writing letters to different people, walking for long to post the letters and challenges they faced while they were doing this movement. They were inspired by a group of people who did protest against cutting trees that was chipko movement, they did Appiko movement. It was very inspiring to listen to their story. I was speechless after listening to their struggle and fight. Finally, in 1989 finally they got victory it was started in 1983 by Mr Pandurang with Mr Hegde. Appiko means Hugging trees in Kannada. Appiko movement gave birth of awareness to all parts of Karnataka. For Mr Hedge Appiko movement is not just not about hugging trees, it’s about understanding nature. A few things he told us to do and few not to do – Plastic is one source to spoil the environment, Processed food, we don’t know making a small chip packet takes a lot of packaging. Also what you can grow is better, you can enjoy your own food. He recommended us to grow hardy trees in our campus, make minimum usage of plastic, try recycling everything. This lead to us asking a question about what is our role in nature… Adopt the pace of nature Its secret is Patience.

The first day at Farm -After a loooong train and bus journey we finally reached No-man’s land.We all were warmly welcomed in their farm, we started settling down. Then George uncle and Sushila aunty gave us a quick brief about the farm and stay at the farm.

Learning about Snakes with Suhas -As a beginner in learning about snakes I had expected something new this time. Meeting Suhas was a good experience, first, we had a lovely welcome drink. Suhas had already prepared a presentation about snakes, He shared about Venomous, Non- venomous snakes and precaution, He also shared about some rare snakes which were found only in western ghats. Few myths which we had in our mind were cleared.There is a basic policy to be followed when there is a snake bite. We held a Non-venomous snake which was rescued snake. It was the nice experience.

DStay at a farm – George uncle shared a quick note about their journey of working on an 8.8 acres farm. He shared ‘when we started the farm we didn’t achieve many ththings, he has been working at this famr for last 10 years, now also he is working failing in his farm. We had a detailed brief introduction of his farm. He is trying out many things in his farm already he has well maintained his farm by using all kinds of waste human, animal etc. Overall we saw many many things, and we all were surprised after seeing these things. Because they are four of them taking care of the farm we in campus 20 people…. Made me deeply thinking and he achiedved things because he was doing it Just doing it

Lunch At Gobbegudde

The food over there was just mind-blowing for all of us. Especially the variety of the food we ate was amazing.

Forest walk

Forest! For some of us this “word makes us think about Wild animals” and

For some of us birds, trees and nature itself. Few of us started asking about animals in the forest. Then uncle introduced us to new trees and plants and also about termite how can you reuse it. I liked it we all were interested in knowing about nature.

Temple visit

Everyone has visited temple this time we visited Madhukeshwara temple in Banavasi it is one of the oldest temples in Karnataka famous for it stone art. We all went saw each thing observed its beauty and just visited something New this time.

Bird Sanctuary

Birds, which most of us love watching, and talking about them. again it was a great opportunity, to watch birds in Western ghats. We went to a Gudavi bird sanctuary near Sirsi. Very beautiful place with lots of birds in it, while walking you can see many birds there is pond We saw many water birds also there it started raining we came back.

Paper Factory.

We all have at-least once visited a hospital, they give us our report and the full data of the hospital, wonder where that file comes from??

So this place we saw how paper is made.

1st they showed us what all they use for recycling so many waste things they make new paper. 2nd the mixture of the cotton rags and pulp and it becomes the paste, later they make into a shape they want after that either put in the sun to dry or there is the machine in that it makes it dry. Then once it gets dry there will be the wrinkle in them make them straight and even. Cut the way they want – While you can add colour into the paste. This is how a file is made they recycle the water, paper, boxes etc. this made us think how much efforts does it take t make a paper.

Bamboo and Palm leaves workshop

Working with bamboo itself is an interesting thing, we attended bamboo workshop and there we saw how neatly and efficiently they make things they also make honey so there is a specific Creeper, from that he scraped all its skin it was green became Yellowish, and then made few designs and showed us, we started doing it few of us failed, some got it, the Uncle was expecting proper bowl form us some with determination continuing making it. Then we also made with palm leaves different kinds of thing like bands etc.


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