One for the Bioneers

In late 2007, as we were preparing for our move back to India, Nipun and Guri tagged us with free tickets to an awesome but expensive conference on sustainability – The Bioneers.

With Aum in tow, Ragu and I took turns to listen in person to many great folks that we had only read about.

Halfway through a panel, Jay Harman, an inventor cum naturalist was almost choking about the destruction of species that goes on every second. The scientist in him knew too well what the naturalist in him did not want to. We all could feel a pinch of that pain.

It was time for Q&A and I told Jay that I didn’t have any questions for him but had a promise to make. When I moved back to India in 6 months, I’d plant at least a 100 trees of minimum 10  different species. And an entire album of chirps and songs will be dedicated to bioneers of the world. He instantly broke into a childish grin and I walked away with a lighter heart.

Recently, thanks to a lot of help from a lot of folks, we completed the planting of about 8500 trees. One of these evenings, I strolled to a part of the farm that I hardly visit and saw a group of parrots sipping off water pearls from corn petals and a contemplative peacock pecking on millets. Looked like a scene that would bring a smile on people like Jay.