“Lakes are essential to every city. They provide means of entertainment, they help local economies and they’re beautiful to look at. But many times, human activities destroy lakes, spoil the ecosystems and make them unbearable.” Harshvardhan Sanghi’s under-six-minute documentary that his mother Suman posted on Facebook caught my attention.
This Std XII student of Greenwood High International School lives close to Varthur Lake, one of the large, polluted lakes of Bangalore. Eager to help the ongoing efforts to get the authorities/ community to do something for the lake, Harshvardhan made this short film. He talks about the reasons for degredation and the possible solutions. The pollution problem is compounded by the fact that Varthur is at the end of a cascading lake series, bearing the brunt of pollution of the lakes upstream as well.
Suman says that Harshvardhan is very passionate about the environment. In the community where they live, he has been enabling the recycling of all kinds of paper, ensuring that they reach the right hands for recycling and do not go landfills. In future he wants to work in an area that will combine technology with environment.
All of us, citizens and administration, need to work together to bring about environmental change. Building up awareness and sensitivity in our children, so that they make the right choices, going against the flow if required, is an important step in this direction.