The early morning chirping of birds, the light breeze, a small drizzle, a rainbow just appearing out of nowhere creating a wow and an exclamation of Joy! While these are things most of us have experienced as Children, it is hard to guess if the coming generation would ever get to experience the bliss of nature, if the current rate of pollution continues unabated. It’s a given that our kids and the coming generations would be deprived of enjoying the lap of mother nature as we did.
Deepak remarks that as the saying goes “Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but doesn’t get you anywhere”, the BOTs decided to give all the pessimism a miss and look forward towards doing our part to make a difference and as is very famously coined term by the great Mahatma Gandhi “BE THE CHANGE”.
On the 20th of June’2016 the BOTs joined hands with the Chennai Trekking Club which organised a massive Cleaning exercise across the length and breadth of the Chennai’s coastal area spreading from the Marina to Uthandi. A sizeable bunch of BOTs gave the early morning blues a big punch of enthusiasm and were up and ready at 6am, to do our bit to conserve Nature.
Allotted the picturesque Besant Nagar beach by the Organisers, incidentally also BOTs favourite venue to play Volleyball, the clean-up began sharp at 6am. From glass bottles to cans, from plastic packets to cleaning up the food waste from the night before, this was one humungous yet satisfying task. As we went about cleaning the wide open area – a range of emotions stuck each one of the BOTs;
Viswanathan, one of our roto lead quotes “This to me in an indirect reflection or mirror in some ways; As I cleaned, I realised how we commit several mistakes which we could easily avoid to better conserve our nature. The whole clean-up exercise was quite an eye opener and I am glad to have been a part of it”
Whereas Mahesh, Anand, Ganesh, Satish, Balaji and Prashanth who had co-ordinated the efforts from the BOTs side remarked that this activity filled all of us with a sense of pride, that every BOT was upto the task with a smile, a smile of happiness and joy that he or she could be a part of “BEING THE CHANGE” we want to see.
Just for the stat buffs, this amazing exercise organised by the Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) meant that more than 4500 volunteers from 140 organisations were part of the exercise and 38 tonnes of waste was collected from 20 kms of Beaches and the great part 56% of this was recycled. Thank you Balaji and the other CTC members for making BOTs a part of this Coastal Cleaning Drive!
