The students and teachers at a school formed a group dedicated to improving the environment. They celebrated Raksha Bandhan by planting saplings in the school garden and tying rakhi bracelets to the saplings to show their love and commitment to protecting trees and nature. On the day of the celebration, girls and boys took turns tying rakhis to the plants while learning their scientific names from teachers. The students felt they had formed new bonds with the trees and were inspired to continue finding ways to help the environment.

1. BONDING WITH TREES
FEEL:
The present situation on Earth is so bad than it once was that environmentally speaking we
have exploited Earth’s resources at such a rate that Earth won’t satisfy our needs for long. Our habit
of over exploitation for our better lifestyles has led to all the environmental problems we study in
our schools. This is the common, deteriorating scenario of Earth’s beautiful heavens, ravaged with
corruption and pollution. Is it too late? Can we still save Earth? Why in spite of knowing the depth of
the problem, we do not take much individual effort?
The earlier generations were certainly helping in conservation of trees by labelling some
plants as sacred. We also read about the Chipko movements. But does the future generation believe
in it? We have seen people watering Peepal tree in temples and tying thread around Banyan tree.
We read about sacred grooves in our books. But we seldom understood the logic and often took it as
a superstition. We are the Gen Y, who always like something new, attractive and innovative. People
now do not follow ethical values of this age old tradition.
IMAGINE:
Can we do something to save our trees on an individual level? The answer is yes! But as it is
the eleventh hour, things need to be rushed with maximum precision. So that we give our best in
saving the Earth, we along with our teachers, formed a group only dedicated to the pollution
stricken environment.
According to the age-old tradition, Raksha Bandhan was always celebrated between a
brother offering love and a sister offering her blessings and good luck. Taking cue from that we
decided to celebrate Rakhsha Bandhan with trees in our school garden.
EXECUTION:
In the first week of August, we planted about 20 to 30 saplings in the soil of our Butterfly
Garden. We were supervised by Mr and Mrs Khatri, two great environmentalists who changed
Kandivali, a suburb of Mumbai, for the better. It was the 19th of August when our teacher in charge,
Ms Archana Kulkarni, came up with an excellent idea which had us first quaking in our boots, but
then we understood that she was actually serious. “Why don’t we tie rakhis to our saplings? They
are kind of brothers for all of us.” sounds lunatic right? But truthfully speaking, it would actually help
us to show our love and responsibility towards a green future.
All of us made it sure that we would bring rakhis to the Butterfly Garden. It was the 26 th of
August when we assembled together after school to tie the rakhis to the plants waiting for some
care and love. Our teacher arrived a minute or so later, accompanied by other teachers. We were
actually surprised to find the other teachers. But it is all right when it comes to giving our best for
the plants. So, acting pleased by the surprise, we marched towards the Butterfly Garden. I heard the
girls of our group chatter out loud “Yeah, we are going to have more brothers!” I hope they do not
mean to also take their new brothers gifts along.

2. “Normally, on Raksha Bandhan a sister always ties a rakhi to her brother, so how are the
boys supposed to tie rakhis!” This statement actually puzzled us completely. But then our teachers
exclaimed “Why do you worry about such nonsense things? We should concentrate rather showing
our brotherhood and love to the plants than these nonsense things.”
Then we started tying the rakhis to the plants. We were so lucky to find rare species of
butterflies in the garden. The Asian kind of butterflies, one of the endangered species, was found in
our garden. We are really fortunate to find butterflies flying all around us, even with human
interference.
The girls went first and tied rakhis to the plants then we were the ones to follow and then
came the teachers turn. Some plants were deep inside the compound but some were very close and
therefore every girl booked their brother nearest to the compound. The boys were brave and bold
enough to go inside the boundary and attempt the harder to tie plants. We were told which ones to
tie by our teachers. Our teachers intimated us about the scientific and common name of the plant
we tied our rakhis on. This helped us improve our knowledge of plants. And with the last rakhi tied,
we literally bounced with joy. We had our group photo taken and then we were off to our homes
with fond memories of our green Raksha Bandhan. Every year celebrate Raksha Bandhan and
remember that we and our brothers or sisters enjoyed the day this or that way. But Raksha Bandhan
was two days back, and nothing could have made us happier after celebrating this memorable,
peaceful and green Raksha Bandhan. And we are waiting to implement some more of our teacher’s,
Archana Mam’s, ideas. They sure do sound lunatic but when you think it is possible, you find it’s not
lunatic at all!
EXPERIENCE:
We were all under some kind of a spell after the activity got over. For the first time we felt
that trees too are living things. The feed back we got from the students was awesome.