a lonely tree

The lonely tree

I saw a wonderful, meandering documentary made about 20 years ago, on the cutting the Ficcus tree in the Indian Himalayas, by Ishwar Pandey. It was shown at The Attic, Delhi, today February 14th. It was named, The Lonely Tree, and it spoke about the devastation that deforestation was causing in the Himalayas, leading to soil erosion and flash floods.
The director, made a set of films for Indian school children for NCERT.
Also there is a photo exhibit, at the gallery of Mr. Pandey’s photographs of the Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, India. The ruggedness of the high altitude mountains with their different shades of brown and red, was contrasted with big sky to create a lot of texture in the photographs. The starkness of the photographs, reminded me of similar black and white photographs by Japanese photographer Kenro Izu.
The discussion was lead by Mike Pandey, Ishwar’s brother who spoke eloquently about wildlife films, and the state of the environment in Delhi. He mentioned that a chemical that was being given to animals had decimated the Vultures population. Vultures are important for keeping the eco system going, by consuming putrid flesh. He also mentioned the lack of frogs in Delhi. He stressed the need for people to be educated on the environment and teach others about the effects of chemicals, deforestation, dams on the Yamuna, that had lead to a drop in the water table in Delhi, causing it to became a desert soon.
Went for a walk to Lodhi Gardens in the morning, it was beautiful with mist and fog covering the old monuments, and trees and flowers all over the beautiful gardens.

Comments

Anonymous said…
sounds great
Anonymous said…
where there cookies
amba said…
yes and brownies and chai!

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