1) A group of 50 techies from TCS volunteered on a Saturday to help maintain saplings and clean up an area near Gunjur Lake in Bangalore that was once a lake but had dried up due to development and soil theft. 2) They met with an environmentalist named Mr. Khan who runs a local school and has been working to restore the lake area by planting saplings. 3) The techies helped maintain the saplings while getting exercise and fresh air in contrast to their typical workweek spent indoors. They saw examples of environmental restoration and waste reduction efforts by Mr. Khan's school that gave them optimism about environmental causes.

1. Shram Dhaan : Techie hands that touched soil.
A Saturday means a lot to the techies, especially considering the fact that the five days,
namely Monday- Friday don't seem to be five distinct days, but as one continuous span of “work”,
intercepted just by few hours of sleep whenever darkness spreads its wings (better mentioned as just
'dozing' and not 'sleeping'). Some even work during the nights though!
This being the routine, the only spice these techies add to their life is their weekends. But in contrast
to the usual habits of getting weakened during the weekends, the Saturday - 30 th of April, witnessed
a group of techies from TCS who assembled with commitment, for a cause. I was one among those
50 who tried contributing some real sweat for the environment.
The activity was aptly named 'Shram Dhaan', which reiterated the purpose of the gathering. IT
employees as the whole nation knows... are spendthrifts (Not all.. though!), so when it comes to
terms called contributions, they can shell out really large sums of money towards donations and
charity, but to spend time for a cause other than business?! I was not very optimistic about that. I
could comfortably manage to be at the TCS campus at Whitefield by 7.30 a.m, but was really
astonished to see many other participants, who are currently working on different projects of TCS
and especially those who had been working till 2 a.m the previous night, reach there with a purpose
in heart and mind. That instilled happiness in me and also helped me restore a lot of the long lost
optimism.
The TCS-Techies at Work!!

2. The following is a quick starter to all that we did on the super saturday...
• Sapling maintenance at the Gunjur's lost lake
• Meeting the 'Man' called Khan
• The K K School and the future citizen
The Place we visited is called Gunjur lake, near the Varthur lake. All the 50 techies were taken in a
common transportation (we avoided private vehicles with an obvious purpose) to the lake area. To
our astonishement Mr.Khan, the pricipal of a K K School of that area, announced that the dry land
we were standing on was a lake once upon a time!
The Lost Lake
The lake had vanished over the years, due to explosive development that Bangalore is seeing
presently. The second reason is the politically supported soil theft from the lake, the soil which can
produce good bricks. So when it rains, the waters don't see a purpose in staying in the lake!
The principal introduced himself this way, “My Name is Khan”. He is an environmentalist of his
own class. TCS Maitree (CS-Corporate Sustainability group) has been in a long relationship with
this environmentalist. Together they have worked out many activities towards attaining Corporate
Sustainability and have sensitized the techies about reducing their footprint on Mother Earth.
Mr.Khan and KK School

3. The VIDYA group, largely composed of old students of Mr.Khan and present students who are
mostly kids, had planted around 650 saplings over the lake area, that which would help hold the soil
together in the near future. It was these saplings that we took care of. The soft techie hands took
held the implements in a not-so.professional way and started de-weeding the place around the
saplings. We all sweated a lot, and we also realized that all this was the sweat that the Air
Conditioning in our office had prevented from oozing out.
“And it was also the reason we decided to sweat on that super saturday!”
This article would stand incomplete without the mention of the activities that the K K
School and its kids undertake. It is a set of sacrifices that cannot be confined to such a small list
below, but still the list is worth a mention!
• The kids have managed to collect 800Kg of Plastic in 6 months, from the surroundings and
recycled them, which would otherwise have been free in the environment (more truly in our
backyards)
• K K School has a 'ground water recharge' idea in place, that hold all the rain water in the
school in its lake-like artificially dug pit.
Groundwater recharge pit Borewell recharge Idea
• They have managed to obtain water at 150 feet from their borewells, by their Borewell
recharge concept.
• A large land area with lots of shrubs,(which could have been easily commercialized, but left
untouched) for the wild hares that lost their homes due to urbanization in the surroundings,
found a home in this place.
• A waste management scheme where they segregate waste, partially used to create compost,
and the remaining is brilliantly commercialized by recycling, the money directly goes into
supporting more environmental activities.
Having given a glimpse of most of the activities of the day, we assure that with environmentalists
like Mr.Khan and youngsters like these techies, we can let our optimism about environment stay
intact with confidence. We wish to see more things happening. As in TCS-Maitree we say, “Be the
change you want to see”. We have started being the change, how about you?
-Ram.N