Mangalore Bicycle Club celebrated this year’s Vanamahotsava by planting eight saplings that also coincided with its eighth anniversary on a sprawling private premises in Valencia here on Sunday.
As many as 35 riders from the club went on a city ride before assembling at Chirag, Vimala Ramachandran’s residence, in Valencia in the morning. Ms. Ramachandran and members of her family were very positive to the initiative and offered a warm welcome to the riders, said club general secretary Ganesh Nayak in a release here.
Medicinal plants as well as fruit-bearing plants sponsored by Kalpana Bhat and Radhesh Bhat of Tapovan Farms, an organic farm in Mulki, were planted at Chirag even as the Ramachandrans promised to take complete care of the plants throughout.
The Ramachandrans have a long-term association with club member writer, poet and entrepreneur Raheem Teekay, who passed away in the beginning of the year. Ms. Ramachandran handed over copies of his book, “Mallige Balli”, to the club members on the request of late Raheem Teekay’s son Rahil and the Teekay family. The Ramachandrans also distributed jasmine flower to the members.
The club decided to contribute its mite to the environment and the cause for which it came into being in 2016 during its fifth anniversary. It launched Vanamahotsava by planting 50 saplings on the premises of Prakash Offset in Baikampady and decided to continue the celebrations every year during the onset of monsoon. That following year, the club members did seed bombing on the Tannirbhavi stretch followed by planting of 10 saplings in seven households to mark the club’s seventh anniversary in 2018.