AN IMPORTANT LESSON TO LEARN FROM CORBETT

Many of us haven't heard of Jim Corbett but he was great writer, hunter and conservationist. He had given up hunting at a time when it was considered a great sport. He had passed away in Kenya in 1955 when hunting was considered a great sport. So now what is his story? Why do I regard him so much as a naturalist and conservationist.

Jim Corbett was born in Nainital, Uttarakhand during the British Raj in 1875. During all the years he lived, hunting was considered something great. He was infact considered a legendary hunter. He hunted down tigers for the British Raj. He has them penned in many of his stories. But here comes the twist. He gave up hunting in the 1920s. Now some background. The forests in which he hunted were rich in bio diversity and contained numerous species of flora and fauna.

Jim Corbett had a great realization one fine day. As he had traversed those forests and lived in the area since birth, he knew everything about the forests. So he realized that rampant hunting of tigers or cheetahs was decreasing their population in the wild. This was alarming so he left his gun and became a conservationist. So why am I brooding about him? He lived so long ago.

Well there is something which we all need to learn from him. For a hunter nothing more than the gun is dear as a profession but he gave it up for the environment. Same way I too think that we can give up our dear polluting habits. I know that we cannot become cave men again but we can live in a sustainable manner. There are many things we can do for this.

• The simplest thing we can do is to spread awareness
• The next thing we can do is to gift saplings to a person on birthdays, anniversaries etc.
• Another best thing would be to use recycled paper for craft (about which I have written in my previous blog : https://letusswayinthebreezeofthoughts.blogspot.com/2020/08/invocation-to-nature.html)
• Re-use clothes as there is no need to be extravagant. Try to use jeans to the maximum as a lot of water is required to manufacture jeans.

These are some things that I have done and I think we can reduce a bit of pollution by practicing these as they are simple to practice and giving up our polluting habits and adopting a sustainable way of life is not pretty difficult.

Adieu

Trishani Bhowmik