Green trees and singing birds.

The school bell clanged loudly and school was over for the day. The children returned from school, very tired after the hours spent in the class rooms, drills and games at the playground. It was a warm, evening heavy with the heat of the day, as the sun slid west, over the pale blue hills. Shadows were lengthening slowly upon the ground as though they too were quite weary at the day’s end.

Children stood laughing, and chatting in small groups around the school premises. Most were rushing off like flocks of birds to the awaiting school buses, which would carry them to their homes near and far. The bus started rolling towards the various allotted streets of Nelloor, where children alighted, upon reaching their houses. Two of them, a boy and a girl, named Ravi and Rani, hopped off the bus, to be met eagerly by their mother Meena.

Ravi was in standard ten, and Rani was in the seventh class. Each of them carried a heavy school bag, like a back pack.

Their mother collected the lunch bags from them and walked towards the house.

The verandah had an easy chair where lounged an old man, Yakov, their grandfather. He was very feeble and a little deaf in the right ear. His visibility was bad too, in spite of the thick horn rimmed glasses he wore all the time.

At the sight of Ravi and Rani, he broke into a wide toothless smile. Somehow he used his dentures only when he had his meals, finding it quite cumbersome!

The children cried, “Thatha*!” They hugged him in turn as he said,

“Go in, children, wash up and have your milk and tiffin!”

Meena had made some sweet, soft, fat paniarams* and hot milk for them, which lay on the dining table, ready and waiting. They rushed to wash and sat down to eat their delicious tea. Meena busied herself with cleaning out their lunch bags, by taking out their lunch boxes and bottles to be washed. Ravi and Rani picked up the plates of paniyaram, and went to the verandah where Yakov sat.

They both sat,eating the delicious paniyarams,on the low wall surrounding the verandah. They happily chatted with him telling him about everything which happened in school. Ravi said he had won an applause from his class for scoring the highest in the spelling test. Rani told him about few girls who had been playing, whispering and giggling at the back of her class and were scolded by the teacher. She said she had bought an icecream cone for her friend and herself with the money Yakov had given her that morning.

Thus the two of them rattled on about things which had happened in school, to which Yakov listened with great interest.
Soon Meena who had their bath ready called them in and the children finished their bath and sat down to study. Soon their father Inban, Yakov’s son arrived. He owned a field and orchards and was involved in the environmental conservation works in and around Nelloor.

They all sat down to dinner and talked of the happenings of the day. Inban ate his food and paused to say,

” Did the ‘Value from waste’ team visit your school today, children?”

“No, appa*” said Ravi and Rani together.

“I see. Well a group of young adults arrived today, and are planning to visit the schools here. They are full of good ideas as to how children can help, along with adults, to keep our town clean and benefit from it.”

“We already have a clean town, appa!” said Rani, who was quite proud of her town, Nelloor, and the manner in which its citizens maintained its cleanliness, adhereing to strict environmental rules. For indeed, Nelloor sported the cleanest streets, and was a plastic free zone, since its people made great efforts to habitually rid the surroundings of garbage, especially plastics.

“Ah yes, indeed!” said Inban smiling. “But its always a wise thing to open our minds to new ideas and ways!”

“We never stop learning, children,”said old Yakov. ” There is always plenty to learn, all your life!”

Ravi rolled his eyes skyward and said

“We have so much to learn already, thatha!”

Yakov smile and nodded towards Inban, to continue his conversation.

“I think the team from ‘Value from waste’ will visit your school tomorrow, children. Listen attentively and tell us what they have to say, when we meet at dinner tomorrow night.”

The children went to school, quite excited and curious about what the ‘Value from waste’ team was all about. And sure enough, during assembly, the Principal introduced the team members of ‘Value from waste’ to the entire school.
There were two people, a young man and a woman, two professionals, with a passion to teach young children the basic rudiments of health, hygiene and waste disposal.

They were eager to start in schools, because they found children were always eager to learn anything new and could be easily taught and moulded. Also the need in all cities, towns and villages for waste disposal, was urgent.

“Hello children!” said Raju, an MBA graduate, who had volunteered to be a member of ‘Value from waste’ to spread awareness among children, regarding recycling of paper.

Raju waved to the senior children seated at the assembly hall and they all chirped in with a ‘hello’, in response, and waved back. He introduced himself, and said he would like them to call him ‘anna’*, and they all responded with,

“Alright anna!”

“I shall tell you a story, which is also a fact, kids, so listen carefully!” said Raju.

“Do you know the story of paper?”

The children did not, and they looked at each other, and then at Raju on the stage, and said almost regretfully,

“No, anna!”

“Well, it is a very interesting story, indeed!” said Raju, and went on,

“The word ‘paper’ is derived from ‘papyrus’ a plant used by ancient Egyptians to produce a thick paper-like material.

He could hear the children repeat, “Papyrus, paper,papyrus, paper.”

“Yes, very good! Now that you know how paper got its name, now I will tell you how paper actually came into use, and who invented it.”

“2000 years ago……isn’t that a long, long time! Well, 2000 years ago, you know, children, there was a Chinese scholar, named T’sai Lun who ground mulberry bark, linen and hemp together to create a pulp. He then spread the pulp on a cloth thinly, and when the pulp dried, presto! paper was formed! Ha! Isn’t that fantastic!”

“Thank you Mr. T’sai Lun!” said Raju, pulling his eyes to make himself look like a Chinese and flattening his nose and speaking through his nose and made the children really laugh!

When the laughter had subsided Raju beamed around at the children and said,

“But here’s another interesting fact, children, the actual paper that we use today was invented by a Frenchman, Rene de Reaumaur. He discovered that wood from trees can be broken down and eventually turned into paper!”

“When we produce furniture or timber is cut, there is always left over wood. This is converted into wood chips, which in turn are pulped for paper production! Fantastic, isn’t it!” said Raju, and did a ‘hats-off’ action to the French inventor and said,
“Thankyou Mr. Rene de Reaumaur!”

All the children laughed and imitated him!

The two names, T’sai lun and Rene de Reaumaur, stayed imprinted in their minds. Raju thus, often used humour, to interest and capture the children’s full concentration, and to help retain what they heard.

“Come on over, Rosey, ” said Raju and beckoned to the young lady sitting in the stage listening and smiling at Raju’s talk.

Rosey walked up and Raju introduced her. She was a part time lecturer in a city college, who had voluteered to accompany the team, on most visits when time permitted. She too waved to the children and introduced herself and complimented the children on their clean and green town. And she said,

“Call me ‘akka’*!”

To which the children happily said,

“Alright akka!”

“You children already seem to know how to segregate your wastes, for I noticed the school surroundings look quite spick and span, and there are dust bins everywhere. I hope it remains this way at the end of the day?”

“Yes, akka!” cried the children eagerly.

“So how do you children help in keeping your school and town clean?” asked Raju, joining in.

“Well,” said one of the boys from the twelveth standard. “At the most, we throw our degradable garbage and the non degradable garbage separately, into two different bins.”

“Ah, that’s very good! That’s half the problem solved already!” said Rosey, very happy with the answer.

“Great!” said Raju, “and what do you do with the segregated wastes?”

“Well,” said a girl from the eleventh standard, standing up to answer,

“Our municipality sees to it, that it is stacked in the godowns from where plastics and organic wastes go to their respective buyers!”

“Yes, anna, a truck comes every week to carry away the garbage! But we do not know where it goes and what happens to it,” said Rani.

Both Rosey and Raju were quite impressed that this little town of Nelloor was already a modest little model town!

“Wonderful job!” said Raju and continued, “But you really must know what happens to your garbage! Both plastics and paper are recycled. Today we will tell you about what happens to recycled papers, children!”

The children sat very attentive and alert, especially Ravi, who was all ears, since he wanted to repeat every word to his family at home!

“Please bring the chart, Rosey!” said Raju, to Rosey. She unrolled a brightly coloured chart and stood it on a stand left there for the purpose.

On the chart were pictures of an egg carton made of thin paper mache, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, diapers, coffee filter papers, napkins,wrapping paper, brown paper sheets, cardboard boxes, art paper and pretty bowls and containers made of paper mache.

There were fancy objects like beads, chains made from the beads, bangles and bracelets, and even furniture, like small tables, chairs and stools. And there were colourfully painted dolls too!

The children watched, wide eyed and amazed! They had no idea, the newspapers and paper sheets sold to the paperman each week had so much potential!

“Akka, where do they make these thing?”

“Anna, can we make them too?”

“Is it expensive to make them?”

“Akka, teach us to make these thing!”

The children spoke the torrent of words, all at once, in excitement!

“Silence, silence, kids!”Said Raju waving again, to make them sit down.

“Yes, of course! Many children in cities attend art classes where they learn to make beautiful objects such as these, which they wear, or use around the house or present as gifts.”

The children listened very attentively indeed! All of them thought it was a good way to save money, making their own useful things or gifts especially during holidays!

“But first things first, children.” said Raju. “Before I go on to tell you anything else, now do you understand why we call our team ‘Value from waste?”

“Oh yes, anna!”said all the children in unison. Rosey and Raju saw the children’s eyes shine with delight!

“First I want to tell you something about what it costs to make paper. You already know, today paper comes from trees.”
The children nodded.

“Did you know that each time we recycle paper, we are saving trees? For example, every four feet of newspaper recycled, actually saves one tree!”

The children in Nelloor often helped their adults in watering tree saplings. So they knew, to an extent, the value of trees, for the town now stood under a green canopy of foliage after they all had actively got down to tree planting, to make the town cooler, some years back. They often plucked the fruits from their trees when they felt like a snack.

The Nelloorians nurtured and protected trees and were forbidden to cut down trees, except in some exceptional cases. But the children had no idea, paper was so closely linked to trees!

Now they were happy to hear that recycling paper actually saved trees the world over.

“And only half the amount of energy is used when recycling instead of making paper from the scratch! So there! We save trees and energy as well, children!” said Raju triumphantly.

“I am very happy that here in Nelloor, plastic bags are not used much. Very good! But the paper bags that replace them…… did you know, a fifteen year old tree can make seven hundred paper bags? Yes, seven hundred!”

The children ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed in amazement.

“But, in big cities, a grocery store can use the seven hundred bags in two hours! Isn’t that unbelievable? But that’s how it is! Which means, forests of trees have to be constantly replanted! So planting trees and recycling paper are the most popular ways in which we can preserve our nature and stay environmentally friendly!”

The children began clapping, and resolved to plant more trees in their town and its surroundings.

” And now, in conclusion, children,” said Raju, happy with the applause. Now he knew this vital message had really reached the children.

“In conclusion, even before you use paper, here are ways in which you could save on its usage:
1.Bring along a eraser board to work out maths problems for rough work, so you can just rub it off, and you dont have to use paper.
2.Use your computers to email instead of posting a letter. Dont you senior students use computers? Well, then!
3. If you must take print outs, use the smaller font sizes, so you will use less paper. And do print on the back side too!That will be a real saver!
4.Cut and clip together on a small pad, the blank side of used sheets, to use as memo pads. You will find it very handy and useful for jotting down information or write shopping lists.

And on behalf of the ‘Value from waste’ team, Rosey and me, we wish you all the best, and have a great day!” finished Raju. Rosey and Raju then waved to the children and chatted with them after the speech.

The children wanted to know who could teach them to make the beautiful objects from paper, which Rosey had displayed on the chart?

“Ah, we have plenty of art schools in cities. I will arrange for one of the schools to take summer classes for you all! That’s a promise!” said Rosey, cheerfully.

“Thank you, anna, thank you, akka!” cried the children flocking around them.

Towards evening, as Raju and Rosey drove back after bidding farewell to the Principal, teachers and the children, they noted the dark, lush foliage shielding the town of Nelloor from the summer heat. It was dense, and therefore shadowy, under it’s shade. Soft, pencil-thin rays of sunlight filtered through the green verdure and lay scattered upon the floor like yellow gold coins. They saw the flutter and heard the twitter of thousands of birds among its leaves.

They drove past the clean streets of Nelloor and the murmuring river, Thennar. It flowed softly and shone like honey in the evening light. Children played in it’s water and maidens hurried home with water in pots, talking and laughing merrily.

“This town is a little paradise,” said Rosey.

“Yes,here are a people who love their town, the land and it’s river strong enough to nurture and protect it so fiercely!” said Raju, to Rosey.

“Yes,” said Rosey, now quite tired after the day at Nelloor.

“More of our cities and towns should do well, to follow it’s lead. I loved the song of birds in the trees, Raju,” she said dreamily, “it’s been so long since I heard the song of birds!”

They were quiet for a while and then Raju quoted a proverb he had heard somewhere,

“Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come….!”
__END__
Story by: J.Jayashree
*****************
1.thatha- grandfather
2.paniyaram- an popular South Indian sweet.
3.appa- father
4.anna-brother
5.akka-elder sister