Ambernath’s Green Warrior
Nature Baba is a 22-year-old film writer who is exhorting people in this distant suburb to adopt trees and plant saplings …………..Jinal Shah
Nature Baba is a 22-year-old film writer who is exhorting people in this distant suburb to adopt trees and plant saplings …………..Jinal Shah
After the customary seriousness of the Saturday morning assembly, it’s a laugh riot at the Fatima High School in Ambernath as a young man in an orange lungi and a matching kurta, a long string of rudraksha beads around his neck, a mop of curly hair and a fake beard walks in.
Aakhir kab tak candle light mein padhai karoge, Aakhir kab tak power cut ki is wiklangta ko seh kar inverter ko apni baisakhi banaoge?”
He speaks with a real rage, but the thousand-odd children titter, giggle, laugh and grin. But he has their attention: Meet Ambernath’s newest hero, a 22-year-old assistant film writer, Hari Chakyar, who doubles up as ‘Nature Baba’ with an urgent message for city folk. For the next six minutes or so, the Baba speaks about how humans are polluting the earth with plastics, fuels and assorted poisons. Economic advancement is not the same thing as human progress, he says as he completes his monologue play ‘Nature Baba Ko Gussa Kyun Ata Hai?’
Part of a campaign to encourage the people of Ambernath to plant trees or adopt one, Chakyar christened himself ‘Nature Baba’ after planting a number of saplings around his own home in the fast developing suburb of Ambernath.
“One afternoon, two months back, I was lazing around at home bogged down by the heat and hecked the temperature myself. I was shocked to see the temperature had soared to 42 degree Celsius,” recollects Chakyar, who resolved that day to do his bit to slow down the pace at which the leafy Ambernath is turning concrete.
He developed a little skit that portrayed how callous residents were to blame for the vanishing greenery in Ambernath. “Green Ambernath with Nature Baba is a young initiative to revive the green cover of the area. A lot of trees have been felled to make way for new constructions in this industrial township. The change in climate is evident,” says the youngster. Chakyar, along with his friends and members of the local Rotaract club, started his green campaign at the Ambernath railway station a fortnight ago.
So, when he is not assisting film writer Anuradha Tiwari, Chakyar now dons the garb of ‘Nature Baba’ and, through his powerful lines, attracts attention on the streets to some realities that environmentalists have long been harping on. His message: adopt trees or plant new saplings to save mother earth, a simple line that he prefers to complex jargon and alarmist warnings.
“We realized that people are not aware of concepts like global warming and past experiences showed that laymen feel global warming is some kind of warning that governments have issued to citizens. It was imperative to change concepts to ensure they are understood locally,” says Chakyar, adding, “We have used rather colloquial language to connect with the people of Ambernath.”
As he rehearses his lines for the next play, Chakyar gets an SOS call from a friend. It’s begun raining, ideal time to plant a sapling. He quickly gets into his Baba avatar and before parting leaves a small piece of advice: Remember, there is nothing cooler than planting a tree and watching it grow!