Karsewa with a Difference

[bsbk123]

Karsewa with a Difference

India

Posted Jun 08, 2005 - 02:46 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Print this story Email this to a friend

Amritsar, Punjab, India - Groomed like many other 'karsewa wale baabae' who have the charisma of involving millions of people and plenty of resources for building religious mansions, Sewa Singh stands apart. Tree plantation is the unique feature of the Karsewa undertaken by this environ-savvy Sewa Singh, Khadoor Sahib Wale.

The mammoth task of commemorating the 500th Gurgaddi Divas (bestowing of Guruship) to Guru Angad Dev, last year, changed the concept of Karsewa for him. To make the event unforgettable, Sewa Singh and his disciples started a campaign in 1999 to plant trees.

By the time the all-important anniversary came in 2004, the Sewa Singh had turned the 5km stretch of each of the four approaching roads to Khadoor Sahib into a green belt. There was no let up in the zeal as Sewa Singh started distributing plants as parshad and made sure that a devotee visiting the local Gurdwara did not go back without a plant in his/her hands throughout the anniversary year.

Sewa Singh’s desire for planting trees escalated with the time. Today, Sewa Singh and his team still plant new trees and carefully nurture more than 27,000 trees that they have planted along the roadsides. Starting from Khadoor Sahib, he has taken the tree-planting drive to the Gurdwaras at Markana in Rajasthan and to Gwalior in Madhya.

Sewa Singh’s passion for trees has developed so strong that he does not even allow anybody to pluck a twig for cleansing teeth from his green belt. “The sewa of cleaning the air is bigger than even the sewa of langar. Whereas langar is served among human beings, air is inhaled by every living being including animals, birds and insects,” says Sewa Singh.

Singh has as many as 21 volunteers whose exclusive job is of looking after trees in and around Khadoor Sahib. They have been provided with four truck-tankers for watering the plants. The volunteers remain in touch with Punjab Horticulture department for technical assistance. A similar arrangement of volunteers and equipment has been made at each location where Sewa Singh has grown plants.

Apart from supervising the work of tree-planting team, Sewa Singh does not miss an opportunity to pay a regular visit to the 30-acre orchard he developed at the local Gurdwara.

Motivated by Sewa Singh, as many as 44 farmers in the region have developed orchards on 250 acre of their lands. “Human beings have lifelong relationship with trees. Right from his/her birth, a child sleeps on a cot made of wood, then he/she starts walking with the help a wooden cradle and during his/her demise, a person is taken to the cremation ground on wooden plank,” says Singh.

Sewa Singh says that if the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), with all of its resources at its disposal, were to take up planting trees on the banks of roads around each of its Gurdwaras, Punjab could prove to be a better place to live.

It remains to be seen whether the SGPC takes his appeal seriously, but 46 years-old Sewa Singh has decided to dedicate the rest of his life to planting tree. “I you have a zeal and determination to do a thing nothing can stop you.”

Note: Report and image by Munish Byala, SikhNN, Amritsar.

mbyala@sikhnn.com

[gupt_paapi]

:doh: haa... beat dat environmentalists!!!

[sikh supreme]

haha...cool...