Pichavaram Mangroves 2nd Largest in India

Everyone goes to Puducherry (old name Pondicherry) from Chennai. 

But very few go another 70 kms south to Pichavaram. Pichavaram? Never heard of it?

Pichavaram (also spelt as Pitchavaram) is a tiny fishing village in Tamil Nadu located between the Vellar estuary in the north and Coleroon estuary in the south. It is famous for the Mangrove Forest which is the second largest in India after Sundarbans. 

India is home to seven percent of world's mangroves spread over the Indian peninsula. See the maps below courtesy respective websites. 

How to Reach Pichavaram

Pichavaram is accessible by road from Puducherry. See the maps below. Nearest rail head is Chidambaram.

Importance of Mangroves

Mangroves prevent soil erosion, provide breeding ground for fish and other marine animals and absorb the impact of sudden surge in the water levels like cyclones and tsunami. Mangroves are important for our survival. Pichavaram mangroves are a designated Ramsar Site vide serial number 2482. See the visuals below for the importance of the mangroves.

How to Visit the Mangroves

Row boats and motor boats along with life jackets are available for visitors. For professional videography, extra fees is to be paid. However, cell phone cameras are allowed free of charge. The forest department charges a token fee of Rs 10/- per visitor.

Our Visit

We visited the mangroves at Pichavaram on 18th May 2024. Sharing below few pictures and videos of the mangroves and its surroundings taken from a moving motor boat at high noon.

The reader may get a feel of the boat ride through the mangroves in the YouTube video shot by Ghumakkad. Please bear with the engine noise as the video has not been re-processed.

You may click on the 3-min YouTube video below shot by Ghumakkad. It takes you through the narrow waterways of Pichavaram mangroves.

A short one-min YouTube video below shows you how the canopy of the boat is folded and re-erected while moving!

A short video below shows how narrow the waterways are through the mangroves. Once again, the engine noise may please ne ignored.

Pichavaram is primarily a fishing harbour. 

Sea Food at Pichavaram

Pichavaram is a haven for sea food lovers like our son Ankush. There are numerous restaurants along the road leading to the boat house. Few pictures.

Enroute to Pichavaram

We crossed Cuddalore on the way to Pichavaram. During the Tsunami, the coastal town was devastated and more than 800 people lost their lives. The old clock tower withstood the tsunami. See the picture below.

The drive from Puducherry to Pichavaram goes through many villages and railway crossings. It was fun reliving the childhood excitement of counting the rail wagons while waiting at a level crossing. See a video and few pictures.

Mangroves - Other Stories

You may browse the following stories for pictures of other mangroves in India visited by Ghumakkad:

Mangroves at Havelock Island in Andamans - The story shows how few grandparents splashed around the Havelock Island in Andamans against the backdrop of healthy mangroves. See the tall mangroves in the background in the picture below.

Walking Mangroves at Kalapathar Beach Andamans - Kalapathar beach is where you rediscover yourself. Browse the picture story which includes the 'walking mangroves' of Kalapathar in Havelock island Andamans.

Mangroves and Corals - This story shows the co-existence of mangroves and corals around the world. See the picture below where Punam Taneja a botany teacher, explains the importance of Mangroves in maintaining the ecological balance.

Hope you enjoyed the story on Mangroves which are so important for sustaining the ecological balance on our planet. Do share your feedback even if a few words!

Special thanks to our son Ankush for organising the trip and being the local foodie guide.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ Secunderabad/ 24th June 2024

Postscript:

24th June: From Commodore TMJ Champion. "You have brought back a flood of memories of my time at Annamalai University where I did my BE. Pichavaram is a few km from my university and I been there last in 1968."

24th June: From Capt NR Ravi. "Thanks Harsh. Lakshmi and I spent our honeymoon there in 1986. Beautiful place. We spent a lot of time studying the tide based creatures we had read about in Discovery."

#mangroves #pichavaram #corals #ecology #tsunami #suddensurge #marinelife #boatride #walkingmangroves #ramsarsite #eastcoastofindia #seafood #fishingvillage #cuddalore #tamilnadu #forestdepartment #tourism #estuaries #sealevel

Only One Earth

Three words, but lot of meaning.

Only one earth- the theme of World Environment Day 2022. It focuses on living sustainably in harmony with Nature. Ghumakkad would like to add our age old saying from the Upanishad in Sanskrit वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम 'Vasudhaiv Kutukbakam' meaning 'The whole world is one family'. The message is the same. As we care for the family, we must care for the world. But as mankind, do we really care? Or, are we degrading the environment beyond restoration? 

On this World Environment Day, we are posing more questions through our pictures below.

Will the butterflies enthrall us in the morning?

Reimagine, Recreate, Restore

This was the theme of the Environment Day 2021. Through our story Reimagine Recreate Restore, we had shared some positive stories and steps to save the environment. An example is the successful recreation and adoption of the nesting sites by Spot-Billed Pelicans in Kolleru Lake, Andhra Pradesh which has shrunk almost 50% in last 30 years. See the pictures of the nesting platforms in the middle of the lake below.

Interested readers may browse the story to do a fact-check and perhaps make some more practical suggestions beyond lofty slogans and hyperbole. There are many more live examples of successful restoration of the environment in the story.

Each one of us can make a difference. Small steps like keeping the surroundings clean and green, no plastics, home composting etc will go a long way. Just do it!

Let us remember that 'Environment is an asset we have borrowed from our children. We have no right to degrade it.' Ghumakkad had said this the first time in 1995 while setting up Prakriti an Environment Club at College of Defence Management, Secunderabad. It continues to hold valid even after 27 years!

Let us hand over the environment to our children in a better shape. One step at a time like the snail- let's do it! We end with few lines by Akanksha our daughter about the Snail:

The climb may be tough

But it will all be worth it

When you give it your best

With true grit

Happy Environment Day 2022 and beyond.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ World Environment Day/ 5th June 2022

#worldenvironmentday #onlyoneearth #worldisonefamily #onestepatatime #letsdoit #everypersonmakesadifference #reimagine #recreate #restore #nature #ghumakkadharsh #ghumakkadhb #environment #preservation #ecology #borrowedasset #environmentday2022

Need and Greed

Does Nature gives us enough? Not only for us human beings but for all living beings and plants? Yes, it does. And continues to do so.

Nature addresses the need. 

It ensures enough feed. 

But not human greed! 

As Mahatma Gandhi had said that the “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

While walking around our neighbourhood lake during monsoon, we noticed many wild vines and creepers all over. Many leaves in these wild creepers appeared half eaten with holes and perforations. We saw similar wild growth around a golf course close by. Here are some pictures.

It set us thinking. All this is part of the food chain. Food chains are part of Nature's evolution. So the leaves provide nutrition to the plant or the vine. The leaves also are food for insects and caterpillars. Similarly in a forest, Tigers may be on top of the food chain thus: 

Tiger-deer-grass-birds-soil-water-dry-leaves-as-manure and so on. You may read how birds are an important part of Nature's ecological balance.

How birds sustain the Food Cycle in a Tiger Reserve?

Some more food chains could be: 

Vultures-dead-animals-plants-etc. 

Serpent Eagle-snakes-rodents-plants-roots-insects etc.

Owl-snakes-lizards-frogs-insects etc. See the diagram below.

Fruit Bats-fruits-trees etc. In each of these food chains the decomposers like mushrooms are equally important to sustain the cycle.

As human beings, we should be responsible for maintaining and not disrupting Nature's food chain. For example, denudation of forests leads to reduction in number of deer which are food for the Tigers. This leads to increasing man-animal conflict. Deforestation in the hills leads to landslides causing silting of the rivers down stream and resulting floods. Floods also occur due to encroachment of river flood banks and Nallahs or drains in cities. Readers may browse our previous stories highlighting this aspect and listed below:

Chennai Floods Man-made

Flood Fury in Hyderabad - How a 91-year old reacted to flooding of her house!

KBG-62 Contest

The 62nd edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad, our online Captions Contest was based on the theme of Nature's Food Chain. The picture below received 30 different captions from more than 300 readers worldwide. 

We thank all the participants. Complete list of captions is given below:

Sl.	Name	Caption for KBG-62 Contest
1	Sunisha	Unknown pain seen!
2	Pradeep Sethi	Harbinger of change!
3	Jaishankar	'Cater' ing for others is the 'pillar' of an evergreen life.
4	PRR Rao	Happiness is letting go of what you think your life
5	Poonam Bhargava	छिद्र हुए तो क्या, किसी को तृप्त किया मैंने।
6	Avinash Tiwari	Bandhani work.
	Poonam Bhargava	परोपकार से बड़ा कोई धर्म नहीं
7	Rohini Tiwari	Nature's Origami....unique and beautiful!!
8	Veeky Baths	Barishon ke mausam ki bheegi hariyali
9	Ajai Bhumri	"  बना बलवान अपने को वरना नुच जाएगा् " "Survival of the fittest "
10	Kishor Thakre	Caterpillars at work!
11	Pradeep Siwach	Lebanon (Refugees ate up the nation)
12	BC Jayaprakash	Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. John 15:13 .....Bible
13	Bharat Ladha	Global management of survival.
14	Rashmi Bhargava	Self sacrifice is a real miracle
15	Sujata Das	Nature's rangoli🙏
16	Amandeep kaur	There is no better designer than nature.
17	Siba K Patnaik	I am ok , I am fighting.
18	Manju Khetan	इक दिन बिक जाएगा माटी के मोल, बुरे बिचार के किटाणू ऐसे ही हमारे मस्तिष्क को क्षति पहुंचाते हैं।
19	Manu Bhatnagar	A very hungry Caterpillar
20	Shereen Sultana	Make a life by giving what you have
21	Ritu Bhargava	Not dead, nor alive, still breathing.
22	Nidhi Bhargava	जीना उनका जीना है जो औरो को जीवन देता है
23	Radhika Sareen	My loss, someone's gain
24	Radhika Sareen	Giving makes me more beautiful
25	GR Sreenivasan	Plant kingdom, lives to nourish other species including humans without expecting anything in return.
26	Saumya Goyal	There is beauty even in being broken.
27	Mamta Bhargava	We will survive no matter what may come.
28	Yogesh Verma	Jab Tak Hai Jaan Jeevandaan
29	Peter de Padua	Nature's nature.
30	Peter de Padua	Green Gold, isn't it yummy?

The Winners of KBG-62

We are delighted to announce and introduce the winners of KBG-62. Their winning captions are also displayed alongside.

Yogesh Verma is a former Colonel from the Army Medical Corps. He is a nature lover and keen photographer. His simple caption जब तक है जान, जीवनदान meaning 'Keep giving till the last breath' conveys the self-sacrifice of the leaves as food for the caterpillars and other insects.

Saumya Goyal, a PhD in psychology is a poet at heart. She believes that Nature is the world's largest canvas on which God paints. Saumya's caption 'There is beauty even in being broken' interpreted the picture creatively.

Peter de Padua has won the KBG Contests previously also. A former Wing Commander of IAF, Peter is a water sport enthusiast. His short and crisp caption 'Nature's Nature' won the Jury's appreciation.

Radhika Sareen is an electronics engineer from BITS Pilani who worked with TCS for three decades. A keen traveller she is a regular participant in KBG Contests. Her caption 'Giving makes me more beautiful' caught the Jury's eye.

Once again our congratulations to all the winners and thanks to both the Jury members Manik Srivastava and Neeta Bhargava for their time.

We end this story with a PQ picturesque quote on maintaining Nature's balance through the food chain. The picture of Tigress Sonam was taken in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

Thanks for browsing. More KBG contests coming up. Stay connected.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/26th Aug 2021

#monsoons #rain #nature #wildvines #leaves #foodchain #predators #consumers #producers #undergrowth #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #lockdownfun #takeabreak #captions #life #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #learningthroughpictures #secunderabad #monsoonphotography #selfsacrifice