Antaragange is a hill near the town of Kolar in Karnataka state of India. It belongs to the Shathashrunga hill range. It is an ancient hill range formed millions of years ago when numerous volcanoes erupted leading to the formation of the Deccan Plateau. Even today many hills in the Shathashrunga range have pyramid shapes or reverse cone shape indicating probably a long extinct volcano.
Whatever the history behind the formation of the hill range, there are several legends as well, one such story goes that when Lord Hanuman took the Sanjeevini hill to Lanka to save laxamana a piece of the hill fell near Kolar which formed as the Shathashrunga range. There are mention of several historic persons living in the ranges including several sages and even lord Rama and Pandavas at some point in history.
But I am not intersted in those, all I am worried is the neglect of these hills in the recent years, people of older generation still remember how the hills were covered by greenery and how many forest animals lived among the hills including Tigers and Leopards. but today once can just see the bare naked hill with its massive granite rocks, not a single tree to be seen on the hills, except maybe in Antaragange where there is a temple and a stone statue of Basava(bull) from whose mouth fresh water come out continuously. So the forest department have hastily done some Eucalyptus plantations which has altered the ecology of this place.
Every time I visit this place I keep thinking of starting a afforestation scheme, the whole range to be planted with indigenous trees including fruit trees which can support the wildlife. This in turn will lead to increased ground water level and probably the Kolaramma lake will be filled as well. I tried to meet the local politicians in this regard but was not very success full last time. Maybe I will give it a go again this time, my dream is to see a green Shathashrunga range with some sort of wildlife back.
No comments:
Post a Comment