Co-existence With Nature

My last year ended with a trip to the sacred place for many - Haridwar. 

As usual I was mesmerized with the beauty called Ganga. 

The appearance,the flow of the river is truly a beauty to behold. I have never seen a river with the colour of the water that Ganga has in this place called Haridwar. It will always be unique to me because I had always associated the colour of any river to a darker blue hue. I never knew a river can be like the colour of the waters of Arabian sea. 

Maybe because of this trip and the experience of visiting a temple which is I believe in the middle of a reserved forest and the sighting of peacocks and monkeys from the ropeway on the way to the temple has inclined me to read/watch about people who live in these ecosystems since centuries. 

Whenever I travel and see these beautiful landscapes and in the midst of nowhere there will be a tiny village ,I wonder who are these people and how can they survive here! 

A good thing in today's world I did not had to even get up from my bed to get some tini tiny perspective into the lives of these people who live in the midst of nowhere .

The very first documentary I came across is a remote village in the great Himalayas where the parants along with small children has to travel on foot to cross a frozen river for 4 days or more ( considering the weather will be kind and will not face any adversities in the way ) at -ve something degrees to send them to school - for their basic education! 

We who live in the cities often joke about the stories we have heard from our earlier generations about the struggles they had to endure to reach their schools! It blew my mind in today's day and technology there still are places that donot have any infrastructure to reach their schools and made me think that these stories may not be as exaggerated as they seem to be! 

The next documentary that I came accross is again a remote village in the great Himalayas where there is only 4-5 months when the people can farm and have to store the produce within this tiny timeframe for the excruciating long winter ! 

The next was the story of a woman who left her life of the luxurious city and moved to a village to live near nature. The one thing that stayed with me is she said that we have to respect nature to live with nature.

This reminded me  about a podcast where a reserve forest member was interviewed about his life in the forest. He categorised it as 3 levels I believe the first where people live along with the wild animals and the tourists are allowed to do touristy stuffs. The next where there are villages - essentially people who live along with the wild animals but no outsiders are allowed. The last where no human being is allowed inside the ecosystem of the forest.

Now back to the documentary where the woman has moved to this village from her city. As soon as she utter these words that we have to respect nature to live with nature my mind went back to these 3 categories of forest. However, the next sentence from her (not exactly these words but the line of these thoughts) - hum soachte h jungle ko bachana mtlab forest gaurds tainad kr do. Kissi ko banduk leke khada kr do and bol do iske aage koi nahi jayega, koi jaye to usse poacher - outsider keh do; again made me think.

I realised my mind also took me to the same place . It was like she read my mind and said those words. But she knows that is not the solution. The people who has lived in that village for so long knows how to co-exist with nature. It makes no sense to remove these people from this village because they know how to respect nature. They have a connect to nature because they know the water they use every day is comming from the river that flows in the same forest. They have seen the river from their childhood and they they know what will be the result if that river drys out!

This is how they learn to respect nature . We who live in the cities do not know from where our electricity is produced, where our garbage is getting disposed , how can we connect to nature,how can we know how to respect nature if we donot know from where we are getting our food, our water,our essentials!

All these thoughts she expressed is so raw yet so true that we are living our superficial live not remotely aware of nature.

The area where I live for the past 3-4 years almost all my colleagues/friends/family living in the same or neighbouring cities have this enthusiasm to trek to the certain mountains, to bike to certain mountains to live in camps to do certain adventure sports or to visit certain places in these mountains- essentially to get an experience of the people who live in these great mountains.

If I really think about it does it give even the slightest experience of these people. The answer is a huge NO.