RIMYI Golden Jubilee 2025

The Plantation on Jan 12th, 2025: RIMYI team

This plantation was planned to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Ramamani Iyengar Yog Memorial Institute (RIMYI), Pune. We planted 106 trees in the first phase on 12th January 2025  in memory of beloved Yogacharya BKS Iyengar  Guruji's 106th birthday. Ms. Monali Shah, a renowned ecologist, selected the saplings and the nursery. She was present to supervise the planting of trees. Mr. Bhajandas and his enthusiastic team of villagers had kept pits ready for the plantation. Subhas Pagle, Vikram Kulkarni of FWF came to help us during the plantation. Manwela Mavalankar, Prashant and Gandhali Kothadia, Neelesh Bangale, Annie Beaty (UK), and I completed the Pune plantation team. We hired a 17-seater bus as more Yog students were to join the plantation team. We started from Baner and picked up Neelesh from RIMYI, Sudbhash from Shivajinagar, and Vikram from Magalwar peth metro station. We left at 7 am We stopped for breakfast at Shivanery Misal Urali Kanchan at 8:30 am. We had a sumptuous breakfast of misal, wada pav, pohe, and idli sambar. Many cups of Amrutulya tea completed the menu. We reached the plantation site at 11:30 am. Gandhali and Prashant had arranged material for Pooja. We performed pooja. All of us broke coconuts to give an auspicious start to the project. There was a large team of villagers, forest officials, and FWF staff to join hands to plant 106 trees. We planted 50 trees and decided to have a lunch break. Bhajandas organised the lunch at his house. We had a wonderful Marathi Jevan at his house.  After lunch all rested under a mango tree in the courtyard of the house. Everybody enjoyed sitting on the Jhula under the tree. Then Bhajandas showed his large farm to the Pune guests. We left his farm with bags full of guavas and lots of vegetables freshly harvested from his farm. This was a great bonus for the team. On the way back, we had bhaji, wadapav, jilabis, and tea at the Kanchan restaurant near Urali Kanchan. We returned to Pune at 8 pm. It was a nice beginning to this project.