Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Praying Mantis



What does rain mean to you?

Ask these plants - hanging onto dear life, praying with frail branches for rains to descend...

The moment the rain drops hit the soil, these shall bloom; I have seen them when they were at their best and I mean it!

Recently I revisited a friends farm, a pioneering effort in my city when it comes to Natural Farming, after a gap of a few years. What hit me was the skeleton like appearance of the once thriving lives...

No rains in the last year and half. A steadfast principle not to exploit aquifers meant no new bore wells dug. Rain was the only means; the Nino kid constantly chased it away from our lands...

My friend invited an expert from an entity called Naireeta Services (founded by Biplav Ketan Paul) that offers a unique rainwater harvesting solution called Bhungroo (means Straw in Gujarati).

This entity provides a sustainable technology solution to store excess rain water during floods in subsoil aquifers and use it later by pumping it out when needed. An expert from this entity came down to her farm on that day to do a gradient survey. I was there to learn whatever I could about Bhungroo.

The expert finished his work and told us that a (costly) geophysical survey of all the lands surrounding my friends' have to be done as the next step if data for the same was not available with local authorities.

I left at this point to visit an old temple that was a little distance away from their farm. I didn't have any clue about what was in store for me there...

As I pulled off my vehicle and alighted, emphatic sounds of conch and loud drum beats emanating from the temple indicated that some important event was underway.

It turned out to be just that, a very important event, a collective prayer to the Supreme Being to send some rains to our parched lands...

Here is a montage:

















Like the rest who were there, I too prayed with a special thought or two about my friend's farm (did you see my Selfie at the top of this post? Praying man (i)t is!!).


That night, it rained!

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