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Swapnil Jha<\/p>\n
Year: 2nd<\/sup> December 2010, Location: The New Educational Institute Curchorem. We all are excited about our picnic and that\u2019ll be tomorrow. We know the place where we all are going. Sandeep Sir told us the place we are going is somewhere in Pollem in Sanguem Taluka. In our batch, there are 52 students in the whole class, and we got divided into teams red, blue, green, and yellow. According to the team member, we are getting points on each subject. My brother Soumya, I and my best friends, and seven girls got blue teams. We are six boys.<\/p>\n We started talking about the picnic. Prachit a fat fellow, starts talking first, \u201cHey guys, you remember tomorrow we are going for a picnic. I am excited. What are you two brothers taking?\u201d<\/p>\n I and Soumya are pure vegetarians so we decide to take fresh fruits, and some roti rolls, and four bottles of water of 700ml. That we said to Prachit. After that, Mohit a thin guy said to us \u201cWhy are you carrying water? There is a small river, we can drink from that river.\u201d<\/p>\n Akhil another fat guy stood up from his seat and came forward and said: \u201cYes, by the way, I have heard from Sandeep Sir we can cook our food there. So we will cook the food there. A lot of fun guys.\u201d Prachit become uncontrolled with excitement. He said to us with excitement, \u201cGuys, I will cook the food for all of you.\u201d Noaiz started laughing at him. I turn my face toward Noaiz and I ask him \u201cWhy are you laughing here?\u201d Noaiz replies to my question \u201cIf Prachit and Akhil will cook food then they both will eat 75 per cent of food then what about us?\u201d The entire student in the class started laughing at Noaiz\u2019s comment for Prachit.<\/p>\n Prachit becomes sad and he put his head down. I look at Prachit he becomes sad so I take Prachit\u2019s side, \u201cNoaiz, by the way, Prachit is a less eater than you, but he is still fat\u201d. Yashaswi looks at me and said to me \u201cYes, Swapnil you are right.\u201d Then Akhil said, \u201cGuys, can I bring raw fresh chicken there?\u201d I and Soumya look at each other and then Soumya looks at Akhil angrily. Soumya explains to Akhil loudly like he is the teacher. Soumya gave the lecture to Akhil \u201cListen Akhil\u2026 Why we should kill live fish or chicken for our enjoyment. Let\u2019s enjoy vegetables and fruits given by mother earth.\u201d<\/p>\n After hearing Soumya\u2019s lecture we all decided to be the vegetarian for one day that is tomorrow. Then Sandeep Sir entered our class and said, \u201cGood morning students, how is the planning going on for tomorrow?\u201d Mohit is still talking with Prachit \u201cI will swim in the river, so I will bring my swimming suits.\u201d Sandeep Sir moved near Mohit and said, \u201cYes you can bring your swimming suit. The river is shallow not so deep.\u201d I asked \u201cSir, can we bring a camera?\u201d Sandeep Sir replies \u201cYes, you can bring that also.\u201d After that, the time passed quickly, and our class ended.<\/p>\n We came home and started our packing. We took our camera, our swimming suit, two-three packets of chips, two bottles of cold drinks, three-four packets of chewing gum, and some dry fruit given by our mom. The next day, 3rd<\/sup>December 2010, all the students gathered. The bus came there. We all jumped on the bus one by one. After that, we took our seats. The bus started moving to Pollem. After half a minute later I open my tiffin of dry-fruits and start eating. I passed my tiffin to other friends who like dry fruits. Then<\/p>\n Mohit started singing Konkani songs. Everybody put cotton in their ears when Mohit started singing. His singing was too bad. Prachit is sitting next to Mohit on the bus. Prachit shouts at Mohit \u201cPlease stop singing. You are a donkey, not a good singer. Watch the scenery.\u201d Just then Soumya starts singing in Hindi. He sings well. Everybody starts dancing to Soumya\u2019s song. But he knows only a few songs. After five songs he stops, because, his stock is over. Then Juhi continued the songs. She is a perfect singer and learns all the Bollywood songs.<\/p>\n Noaiz saw a beautiful peacock out. Noaiz shouts \u201cPlease stop the bus, there is a beautiful peacock dancing outside.\u201d The bus stops at a path and we went out to see the peacock. We click photos of the peacock. We see the dance of the peacock for five minutes. After five minutes, the peacock flew away. And we are back on our seats. The bus starts moving again.<\/p>\n Fifteen minutes later, we saw a river. Then we are excited to take the jumps on the river. We want the bus to stop. Susmita shout \u201cPlease stop the bus\u2026 we need to swim here,\u201d Sandeep Sir says \u201cKids, we all are reaching Pollem. There is an awesome river in Pollem please wait for half an hour. After that, we will swim there in Pollem.\u201d Time passes quickly. We reach our location. It is so beautiful. The mountain is green with the grass and the river is clean. We saw a group of deer drinking water. I took out my chewing gum and put it in my mouth. I saw a village boy standing nearby watching me. I think he never saw chewing gum before, \u201cHey, who are you? What is your name?\u201d He did not reply. I was amused and put another piece of gum in my mouth. He was curious and surprised by all this.<\/p>\n Soumya suggested offering gum to this boy. I offered him a gum packet. He happily accepted and told me, \u201cI am Sagun Velip.\u201d \u201cI am Swapnil,\u201d I replied. Prachit started laughing. Nice friendship Sagun and Swapnil. He ran away from there.<\/p>\n We started praising the location. We were happy and excited to have fun. We started playing badminton. Suddenly we saw a group of children, almost our age, from the village. They brought tender coconut for all of us. We called them and introduced each other. In no time we become friends.<\/p>\n We played for almost an hour together. Suddenly Yasashwi told everyone she is hungry. Sandeep Sir instructed us to bring packaged food so we can eat. We offered a packet to our village friends Sagun and company. They accepted and insisted to come to their orchard to have fresh fruits like banana, watermelon, guava, etc. We saw a lot of fresh vegetables in the fields. Sagun announced that he will roast fresh vegetables for us. He lit the bonfire and we all roasted fresh vegetables and ate. It was a great experience for all of us.<\/p>\n We were thankful to our village friends. After taking some rest they guided us to the river for a swim. We all enjoyed swimming for almost two hours. Sandeep Sir also enjoyed with us. Sagun then directed us to a waterfall in the forest, 2 kilometres from Pollem. We went with Sagun and were mesmerised by the view. Sagun informed us that all wild animals including tiger and leopard can be seen occasionally. We were a little frightened.<\/p>\n By the time we reached back to our bus it was evening. Our day and picnic were ending, but our friendship with Sagun remains. We said goodbye to our village friends with a heavy heart.<\/p>\n Before we could leave, Sagun and his mates arrange some fruits and vegetable packets as a token of love for all of us. It was so heart-touching. When the bus was about to leave I got down and gave my camera to Sagun as a token of love. After seeing this, all friends gave their favourite caps, pen and biscuits to our village friends. What a memorable day.<\/p>\n One day after two years, Sagun came to our school and narrated that in Pollem village there is a big company that is going to mine and set up a steel plant. \u201cOur entire paddy field and orchard land are going to be destroyed. They are paying a lot of money to villagers so everybody decides to sell the land, except my father. Government officials and the company management are harassing us to sell the land.\u201d<\/p>\n We gathered all the classmates and urge Sandeep Sir to oppose the mines and plant. The next day, along with teachers, we met our MLA. He assured us of his help. But nothing happened and we heard that the mine and steel plant started. We were all saddened.<\/p>\n I am in Pune. Due to corona lockdown, we are confined to our flat. I am a software engineer working from home. Sometimes I feel this corona pandemic is our creation. In the way last 30 to 40 years this generation advanced technology mindlessly, totally neglected our mother earth. Due to heavy population growth and demand we cut forests, contaminated water bodies and rivers, polluted air. All this today has taken a big toll on humanity and our glacier is shrinking, global warming brings flood and drought. Sometimes I feel we have lost the Mother Earth and ecosystem balance.<\/p>\n My phone started ringing. \u201cHey, Doctor Prachit… how are you?\u201d Prachit is a doctor now and practising in Goa. He enquired, \u201cSwapnil, do you remember Sagun?\u201d I asked \u201cSagun Velip\u201d. He said, \u201cYes\u201d. I told him \u201cI am remembering him a lot.\u201d Prachit told me, \u201cHe is treating Sagun for his depression. He is in bad condition.\u201d He explained to me, \u201cAfter selling his land to the company his family got a lot of money. They purchased a car\/Bike and started spending a lot of money. This money led almost everyone from the village to all vices including alcohol and in a few cases even drugs and casinos. After a few years, they lost health, money as well their peace.\u201d<\/p>\n I decided to take leave and come to Pollem which in my mind is still heaven. When I reached there, I could not believe, this is not the same place. When I first saw it, it was a tiny village with neatly maintained huts, a flowing river and deer is playing in the backyard with lots of birds. Everything is gone now. The river is almost dried. The entire area is covered with red dust. Of course, there is a bungalow but also garbage and plastic litter.<\/p>\n I walked towards Sagun\u2019s house. His mother was there. Sagun is still in the hospital. His father died due to drinking. It was so sad for me. His mother offered me water. I am about to leave the place. Suddenly I saw my old camera hanging on the wall. I realised that if time has to be captured, I would like to capture and keep time frozen to when we came for a picnic. While returning I thought. \u201cDo we need such type of civilization-destroying land, polluted water and air, and finishing the entire youth? You please guide.\u201d<\/p>\n (Writer is a student at Dhempe College)<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.8″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.8″] Swapnil Jha Year: 2nd December 2010, Location: The New Educational Institute Curchorem. We all are excited about our picnic and that\u2019ll be tomorrow. We know the place where we all are going. Sandeep Sir told us the place we are going is somewhere in Pollem in Sanguem Taluka. In our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shortstories","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2154,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152\/revisions\/2154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navhindtimes.in\/kuriocity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}