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From: Ananthu (at Navadarshanam) [mailto:jyotianan...@gmail.com] Subject: How to get plenty of drinking water even in a desert Dear friends, >From 1976 to 1991, Jyoti and I were a neighbour to and a very close friend of Anupam Mishra at Rajghat in New Delhi, where we together worked for the Gandhi Peace Foundation. During this period, both of us developed a great regard for Anupam - for his work in the field of environment, as well as for his humility and simplicity. Anupam started his work in the field of environment in the early 1970s, when he was in his late teens, and when few others gave this aspect of life any importance - terms like global warming and climate change were unheard of! He was first involved closely with Chandi Prasad Bhatt, the lesser-known founder of the Chipko movement. In the late 1970s, he started work on rain water harvesting as practiced in our traditional societies. The data and pictures he collected in the 1980s on how rainwater has been collected in the deserts of Rajasthan impressed both Jyoti and me, as well as many others in the Gandhian movement. His work in this area has now begun to draw wider attention, and recently he was asked to give a 15-minute presentation on it at the famous annual TED conference which attracts a lot of important personalities from all over the world. Anupam usually speaks only in Hindi, but for the sake of this audience he switched to English - perhaps for the first time in his life. During this short presentation, he has managed to capture the glory of traditional rain water harvesting in Rajasthan's deserts, where there exist systems upto 400 years old which capture from one lakh litres to 6 million gallons of water in areas where rain fall can be as low as 9 inches!! These structures are an engineering marvel, also very aesthetically built. In the belief that you too might like to watch this presentation of Anupam, I am giving below the link to this video: http://www.ted.com/talks/anupam_mishra_the_ancient_ingenuity_of_water_harves ting.html If, after seeing the video, you are inspired to communicate with Anupam personally, here are his email id and phone no.: anupam.mishr...@gmail.com 011-23311517 He will prefer if communications from those who know Hindi can be in that language (with gmail's new transliteration facility, this should not be difficult). He continues to live at Rajghat along with his wife Manju, son Shubham, brother Amitabh and sister Nandita. His father, the famous Hindi poet Bhawani Prasad Mishra, and his mother, who was also a devoted Gandhian, are now no more. Yours, Ananthu Note: This email has been sent to you as you are on the Navadarshanam Mailing List. If you wish to be removed from the Navadarshanam Mailing List, please send an email to : unsubscribe.navadarsha...@gmail.com -- T.S. Ananthu & Gopalan- Shobha & Nagarajan-Padmini, Navadarshanam Trust Ganganahally hamlet Gumalapuram Village Thally block, Krishnagiri Dist T.N. 635118 Ph: 92436-15470 (Gopalan & Shobha), 92436-05053 (Ananthu), 92434-35467(Ananthu's mobile), 92436-05051 (Nagarajan & Padmini) 92430-49163 (Nagarajan's mobile) www.navadarshanam.org
