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Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 January 2017

Paintboxes to Colour Nature





Mother nature is always there to display its technicolor to lull its beloved creatures. It's always eager in spanning its vividly eye-catching wings wide enough to take the life forms into its arms. It's manifested when it starts transforming its lush green summer colours into  colourful autumn foliage full of reds, golden yellows and brown.

Is there any world in the entire universe which is more colourful and attractive than the planet earth? Are there any mega smoky factories to supply harmful paints to colour this planet earth? Is there any tourism department to paint foliage and flowers to make the landscape beautiful? Is there any great architect destined to plan and design varied patterns of colours in the natural scapes? If any little inquisitive kid ask us these questions, then what would be our answer? As elders we simply laugh and say, "No, dear, that's by nature itsef."

If it were needed to colour all nature 
and plants in the world, one can guess how many petroleum rigs, petrochemical refineries and paint factories would be required and how much air and water bodies would have to be spoilt, is beyond anybody's calculation. But the nature isn't so foolish. It generates so many colours and their  mixtures without releasing any harmful fumes into air and effluents into water to endanger the lives of fishes, birds and other animals. The nature produces everything with an intention of doing benefit to its entire living community unlike that of the human kind who wants to show his talent with the sole aim of gaining falseprestige and business profits irrespective of the damage caused to the nature through obnoxious chemicals.

The natural wonder with concentric rainbow colours around the Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic hot spring is a reflection of a myriad of pigments in different microscopic cules. The beauty of watermelon snow, pink snow, red snow, or blood snow over the alpine and coastal polar regions during summer is  nothing but the hues of astaxanthin pigment exhibited by an alga called Chlamydomonas nivalis. The Red Sea get its shade due to an another alga called Trichodesmium erythraeum.The most beautiful river in the world “the river of five colours” in Colorado get its vibrant colours due to red plants called  Macarenia clavigera, the yellow and green sand, the blue water and all the shades in between. Even the hot chillies exhibit green, yellow and red shades as they pass through unripened to ripened stages.

Every plant, tiny or mighty, has billions of tiny paint factories, hidden deep in their bodies, to produce myriad of colours and their mixtures. These factories are called plastids. Some describe them as microscopic paintboxes too. But majority of these paintboxes are green and are called chloroplasts. Green paintboxes produce green pigments called chlorophylls. A chlorophyll is a tiny molecular solar cell that traps sunlight to produce food not only for its own plant body but also for the guest animals which depend on it. Obligations won't stop here, but increase further to raise a green canvas spacious enough to be splashed with ever changing  interesting patterns according to the days and seasons. Same thing is with respect to animals and their body complexion. No any fixed monotonous pattern to disgust its frequent visitors like insects,birds and other animals. That's how the nature is creative and interesting!

By the way the microscopic paintboxes that produce pigments of different colours are called chromoplasts. Each paintbox is filled with a colourful pigment or a mixture of different pigments. But in the case of flowers microscopic paint sachets containing anthocyanins are available which are called vacuoles. Even a mega paint company fail to present a catalogue with such a huge range of hues and shades. And no one architect or a painter dare to create the  aura of colours and their mixtures as so we visualize in the natural world. The colourful pigments are always there beside the green pigments either to protect green pigments or to radiate an additional quanta of light particles to enhance their food manufacturing capacity. In addition to providing a beautiful look to the landscape they lure a number of pollinators to come, pollinate, fertilize and produce seeds and fruits.

Red, orange and yellow colours of carotenoids; blue, purple or burgundy colours of anthocyanins; and red and yellow shades of betalins are always available without a no stock board! While carotenoids paint carrots, papayas and yellow flowers;  betalins colour beetroots; apocarotenoids  paintoranges; and anthocyanins paint red, pink, purple, violet and blue flowers and apples.

But the pigments synthesised in plants are not pollutants in contrast to those manufactured in paint factories.  Plant pigments are multipurpose in the sense that they are not only aesthetic with everchanging patterns but also synthetic in producing oxygen, food, medicines, fruits and vegetables unlike that of artificial paints which give fixed monotonous aesthetic sense along with suffocating gases and carcinogenic effluents. 

If it's so then where's the need for importing barrels of petroleum, petrochemicals and paints. Is it must to choke the breathing systems of workers in factories and on high walls of buildingsto create the fake and fading complicated designs? Can't we habituate  ourselves to live in smaller houses surrounded by bigger colourful gardens all around? Why shouldn't we enjoy the colours in the perpetual ever-changing garden rather on the ever fading saddened walls? A twist is urgently needed to be given to the never quenching economic greed an ever charming philanthropic lead!
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Friday, 15 April 2016

The Other Mother's Lap for Education



Is there any place in the world equal to that of the mother's lap, with so much aura of care, love and warmness? Definitely not! Is there any primary school which can match this free gift of nature? No, certainly not. Whether it's day or night, summer or winter, healthy or unhealthy that comfort touches anyone's  heart.

Could we get the similar hospitality through out. No, not at all possible. As we grow we have to distance ourselves from that heaven of cosiness.  From primary to high school; then from pre-university to university studies, a lot of changes occur in the kind of atmosphere and care we get. One could visualize one's academic performance and its relationship with factors like availability of sunlight,  air ventilation, air quality, humidity and temperature. These factors boost up the understanding of the subject,  memory retention, creativity, and performance in examinations. Could we expect such an ideal atmosphere for education, these days? Hardly one can expect!

Luckily I used to get this kind of opportunity in natural and pristine environs around my place. Whenever I had holidays I used to squat with a couple of books under the shade of my favourite tree, Karanj or Kanuga, botanically Milletia pinnata or Pongamia glabra (old name). The evergreen tree with a massive canopy of light green foliage and all-around drooping branches was the best alternative to my mother's care. The cushiony thick carpet of fragrant, pink, purple or white tiny flowers on the ground, was the best alternative to my mother's lap. The intense heat and sunlight of the summer used to chase me out towards this tree of great refuge. The occasionally-visiting chirping birds was an additional recreation for me. I hardly felt bore-some during my exam preparations. Sometimes I used to enjoy sighting a lofty bow of gleaming rainbow through the water-dripping twigs during brief summer showers. I hardly used to feel tiresome because of the amazing cooling nature of the tree due to its effective transpiring surface. No need to spend money on purchasing energy for running fans or coolers. This is not an exaggeration, please. I used to assimilate, grasp or memorize  subjects at a pace more than what I could expect at my home or in my classroom!

Can't we present our tender children and sensitive students of the day this kind of heart touching and ever-soothing environment? Definitely we can! This will save pupils and students from increasing health disorders due to accumulation of pollutants in living places to the alarming levels. The best way for saying goodbye to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), Sick School Syndrome  (SSS), or Sick Car Syndrome  (SCS) is by spending a few hours a day outdoors in green environments. We are not dearth of champions of education, children-lovers and billion-dollar planners in this era to save the children. A lot of scope is their to modify the present monotonous classroom system. This will also be  a way to avoid shifting of focus of students from studies to the travails of  dripping-wet-hair through profuse perspiration. Besides the colourful-but-cluttered classrooms, it would be better to have a live garden around, full of colourful flowers, attractive birds and shade-giving trees. It would be a relief from boredom too. So we shouldn't miss this opportunity of getting the blessings of the helpless and innocent children by providing tree shade!

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Could Animal Activists Rescue the Modern Ape Too?



As a child I was very much fond of watching animals and birds. I was one of the first visitors to any circus that happened to have shows at my place.  I used to  visit  zoos too. It's pity that I wasn't  educated enough or matured enough at that age to perceive the agony of those animals which were entertaining me.  Yes, off course that's true! I couldn't notice that the poor creatures, which were supposed to entertain me, were being chained, shackled,  tethered or cramped in artificial cages. Did they have enough space to roam about?. No, they weren't  getting favourable environment and enough space as much as what they get in their natural habitats. It's being told that these animals were accommodated in spaces that's 18,000 times less than what they could have been in their wilderness! They weren't on their own choice of food, movements and mates too. Anyhow a day of enlightenment came to me. My biology teacher and animal lover narrated the bad fate of those animals. I'm very thankful to him for changing my attitude towards the artificial confinements.

My mind was still reminiscent of bellowing of deer, roaring of big cats, trumpeting of elephants, and chirping of birds.  Thanks to animal activists who have changed the conditions of captive animals.  Now we can watch the animals at their comfort  in spacious enclosures. Safari parks and zoological parks are there to replicate their natural habitats. It's great that some human beings have become humane towards wild animals! In the modern parks the animals ate provided with sufficient space, grass lands and tree canopies to make them healthy and stress free.

One day when I was watching the human like behaviour of chimpanzees,  gorillas and orang utans at a zoo park,  a little girl who was standing beside me,  muttered, "These apes are better than us to play, roam around and enjoy lives in natural surroundings". That's true. When cool breeze, grass lands and tree canopies are must for animals then what about this another biological creature, the man.

Let's hope one day the animal activists would turn their focus from animals to  "the modern ape", whose condition is severe than that of the zoo animals. Are our living factors not akin to those of zoo park animals? Lions and tigers in the circus are driven out from their cages into temporarily raised tunnels, and then into high enclosures to display to the spectators. Can we deny the fact that our living factors are also a little bit similar to theirs? We too are confined to concrete buildings, metallic vehicles and concrete offices or schools. No natural habitats to live. No fresh air to breathe. No cool shade of trees to sit under. At least for a part of the day! Every thing is artificial. There has been incessant efforts to dump a lot of cement, glass, burnt clay, marble tiles, plastic, steel and other metals around us to raise the temperature of development. Don't we need sufficient natural space for gaining natural immunity, health and vigour?  Could we expect changes in the human world  at least for the future generation? But be optimistic!   Animal activists are there. One day they will rescue this modern ape too,  from the perils of the intolerable concrete enclosures!