It’s been just 24-hours since I started the ‘Themed pic of the day‘ series, and I’m getting pretty good page hits from across the globe. I’m happy to see this series increasing my unique visitors and page hits by about 32%. More than 50% of those who visited the blog post, also visited the gallery page!
Today’s theme is ‘Travel, environment’
For those who didn’t visit the first post of this series, following are the themes that will be covered:
- Society – the people, city, culture, etc
- Technology – ranging from the oldest to the newest, disruptive, gawky, funny, disruptive, and so on
- Lifestyle – moral standards, economic development, attitude, taste, richness, etc
- Travel – I’m a wanderlust!! Anything and everything related to cities, scenery, nature, infrastructure, castles, rivers, lakes, oceans, and so on
- Environment – e-waste, green house gases, hybrid cars, green technologies, etc
- Politics – I know this can be dirty, but will try to comment on a clean picture!
- Space – the deep, dark and the mysterious. We will be there, one fine day!!
You can also send in your pics, and a few words about the picture. It is advisable to send pics hosted on photo-sharing websites – easy and efficient. Please feel free to suggest new themes.
Well, here goes the pic..
Picture © Ubiquitense
Place: Azhiyar reservoir, Tamil Nadu
Location: About 30 km from Pollachi and 70 km from Coimbatore. Located at the foothills of Valparai. Valparai constitutes a small part of the Anamalai mountain ranges along the Western Ghats.
No sooner I entered this place than I felt eternal bliss – relieving me from the heat, dust and noise pollution of Chennai. The Azhiyar reservoir is serenely calm, beautiful, well-maintained and very clean. I was amazed to see people suddenly becoming conscious about ‘not to litter‘ around the dam, even in the absence of a ‘No Littering‘ sign board. Wow! this place really has the capability to transform normal care-free humans in to civic-conscious citizens.
In the picture above, you can see a big house at the far end of the reservoir. Wish I had a house like that..far from the madding crowd. Just me and nature, and of course my ‘love’, to ‘assimilate’ the joy of living.
I learned from one of the locals over there that this part of the Western Ghats is mostly untouched by humans – making it appear God-like! Good that we didn’t enter and litter that territory.
This place is worth a visit again, and it’s already in my list of ‘places to see before I die‘.
I think we need more places like this to naturally transform people to being better citizens, at least momentarily. What do you think?
Disclaimer: All photos posted in this section are rightfully attributed to the source, unless otherwise stated.
Absolutely. All of the cultures I can think of have a reverence for nature, I think because it does result in reflection and perspective. When in Chennai, we drove to Pondicherry and the trip gave me an entirely different view of India. I have a few spectacular pickies of workers in the rice fields, and there was no trash or traffic. Growing up in rural America, I loved rural India – it wasn't exactly home, but I related to working the land and walking the fields…Mother nature lets you know exactly where you stand, whether it be in concert with her or at the mercy of her frightening strength. Either way, nature is truely awesome.
Yeah! at least this way, nature (if not the law!) has control over people littering relentlessly. This is also one of the reasons that you found a stark difference between Chennai and Pondicherry.
the mountain range makes the place even more beautiful. scenery like that will not just transform you to a better citizen, it will make you thankful for the gift of life!