ON MONDAY, IIM-L students attending the postgraduate programme (PGP-I) class on the management campus, saw an octogenarian with white beard and clad in a khadi kurta pajama taking their class.
The man spoke clearly alternating his lecture in Hindi and English. He spoke for about half-an-hour and the students heard him with rapt attention. When he concluded, the students gave the octogenarian teacher and his wife a standing ovation. Who was the teacher? Famous environmentalist Sunderlal Bahuguna! And who were among the students? Well, journalists as well as teachers like chairman of Legal Management Group who is also the chairman, Students affairs, Prof Dharmendra Sengar.
Just before his lecture, Bahuguna went around the management campus checking out how green the campus is. On being told by IIM’s horticulturist Dr GN Tiwari and PK Rai, a senior employee of IIM that the institute boasted of about 33 per cent green cover, Bahuguna was happy.
“Trees are our last hope. Plant them as much as you can. Increase the green cover further,” he advised before joining in the IIM ‘adopt a tree’ campaign initiated by Prof Sengar himself.
{{/usCountry}}“Trees are our last hope. Plant them as much as you can. Increase the green cover further,” he advised before joining in the IIM ‘adopt a tree’ campaign initiated by Prof Sengar himself.
{{/usCountry}}Bahuguna planted two saplings near Samanjsya auditorium and offered a prayer after planting them. What was the prayer for? “I prayed to God to develop these saplings into healthy trees,” he said.
When some IIM students asked him what his Chipko-II movement was all about, the simple man remarked, “It was all about feeling the heartbeat of the trees,” he said and then went on to give a demonstration of the same. He and his wife Vimla embraced a tree. The students did the same. Some appeared amused and started smiling but Bahuguna advised them calmly, “don’t laugh! It’s actually an emotional bond that man shares with nature. If you shower your love at the bounties of nature, nature would love you in return. Otherwise, if you show contempt then it wouldn’t treat you well.”
The students got the message. By the time his IIM lecture and his plantation drive ended, the students were bowled over. Some ran after him for autographs.
Others touched his feet! The man blessed everyone. By the time he left the campus Bahuguna had made several young admirers. Admirers, who are willing to carry the octogenarian’s message forward!