Hari Om, I am Prasiddhi Singh. I study in class 1 at Mahindra World School in Chennai.
Today I want to share about my ‘magical friend’. Do you know who my magical friend is? Do you know why he is magical? He is so magical that even if we give any bad things to him, from his goodness he converts it to positive. Like when we give pollution to him, he converts it into fresh air; when we give food waste to him, he converts it into fresh fruits and flowers. From head to toe, from his leaves to the roots - his every part is very useful to us. Isn’t he magical?
Can you guess who my magical friend is? Yes, it is the tree. He is so helpful to us, and yet our elders keep cutting him, and do you know what? Every minute ONE forest is getting cut down in some part of the world. Forests are a big source of fresh air and water which is so important, and still our elders are cutting it. Our elders say that we are advancing but what kind of advancement is this when we have to pay for fresh air and water which was free at the time of our ancestors?
Our ancestors drank water from rivers, our grandparents drank water from the well, our parents used to drink water from the tap, and today we are drinking water from distilled water, the next generation will drink water from water capsules, and may be the next generation will drink water from tears.
To save our Mother Earth, I have a dream to plant fruit forests in schools and create a kid’s army to feed the squirrels, birds and butterflies and give fresh fruit to everyone. You know why only fruits? Because when my parents were kids they had fruit trees in schools and they used to pluck and eat them directly, but now all the fruits are waxed and infected and we can’t eat them directly.
A few days back, I created a fruit forest in Anjur Government School and planted 500 fruit trees. I have also created my kid’s army where we collect fruit seeds for plants. We use tea dust and clean eggshell for manure and we will create a nursery in our society.
Recently our Guruji has also joined my army and every year I come to the ashram and I try to learn as much as I can. Last year Guruji said, “If you have patience, everything is possible, if you lose patience, you will become a patient.” So patiently I am also trying to do my contribution to make Mother Earth green. This year I learnt to live yoga moment to moment and I will try to make a difference.
I want to ask all of you: Do you also want to join my army? Then take the pledge that you will start collecting seeds and plant them to make a difference. Jai Ho.
14 February 2019, Bal Yoga Diwas, Paduka Darshan