Let’s pledge to emulate Shalini and become saviour for Nature
By Subhi Vishwakarma
Have you ever thought of having a savings account for planting trees?
Well, you should have, as it’s too fascinating. Meet Shalini Chakrawati who is a student by profession and an environment enthusiast by passion. Though she lives in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, she is surely contributing to the entire planet by her deeds.
Shalini has a good habit of keeping the left-over amount to herself whenever she gets money to buy something from the market by her parents; we all do this in one way or the other.The difference is we save it for our chocolates and other stuffs now but Shalini saves it for her plants. She has plenty of piggy banks in which she puts money. The money gifted to her on some special and auspicious occasions/festivals also goes directly to her plantation fund.
With the money thus saved she buys as many plant saplings as possible.
She has planted around 700 plants in the yard of their workplace till now where the bricks baking kiln generates smoke. We all would have read in our primary schools that trees must be planted, especially in industrial areas, but never was it actually implemented. Alas, the planet had people like Shalini!
Besides few varieties of mango, guava and other regional fruits, she has also planted hundreds of oxygen generating plants including Ashoka, Banyan and Coconut etc at her home.
She has been doing this plantation drive for past seven years now. She not only plants trees herself but also motivates others to do so. She has specially created her ‘Green Bharat’ Instagram page in order to motivate the netizens to plant trees.
With plantation, comes the patenrs-like responsibility to take care of the saplings. What’s more, Shalini is now making manure on her own to feed and bring up her tiny saplings.She has a unique way of utilizing the waste water as well.
As Shalini says, “I borrow cow-dung from nearby villages. Seeing my work and dedication, villagers give me cow-dung for free. Then I soak them overnight in water with jaggery and then drain off the water next day. This drained water works as pesticide for the plants and the remaining mixture is kept for a month. After subsequent tossing on alternate days, the mixture gets ready as manure for use”. She uses her home-made manure for the plants.
She is doing everything to motivate people around her to save money for plants and plant trees around. This World Environment Day, she has planned to host a takeaway sapling drive for the netizens. As this will motivate them for planting more and more trees and she hopes to rope in more people for her unique initiative by the use of hashtag.
Let’s pledge to become Shalini the saviour for Nature, save small money. Shalini thinks even one rupee per week would be enough and a benign beginning for our oxygen account. Lest we would be forced to run from pillar to post in future for oxygen.