Helping the chirp stay alive : DNA Ya! Mumbai

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

Helping the chirp stay alive : DNA Ya! Mumbai

DNA Ya! Feature Story

Helping the chirp stay alive

World Sparrow Day was celebrated on March 20 with a lot of zest all across the country. On this day, a five-years-old ya!ster was awarded the “Sparrow Friend Award 2011: by Governor of Maharashtra- Shri K Sankaranarayanan at Raj Bhavan. Priyanka Talreja interviewed this little fellow and found out his story

Hitesh Yadav (5) is studying in SrKg of NESS Sunseam School in Bhandup. At this young age Yadav had already won Outstanding Student Award for being an Animal Activists by his school. He is also the youngest volunteer of the NGO PAWS-Mumbai.

When we asked Hitesh, what did he do to win this award he said “I save two baby sparrows. The baby sparrows had fallen out of their nest into a drain. And a cat was about to eat them up. I quickly picked the baby birds up and got it to tuition (PAWS).” After learning that we asked Hitesh how did he feel to be the proud owner of the award? To which giggled and said “I felt great for the sparrow and myself. The award is kept at my house and it feels nice.”

But how did Hitesh develop this love for animals at such a young age? PAWS is the secret. Sunish Subramanian founder to PAWS Mumbai explained that “Hitesh stays very close to our NGO. He would accompany us for rescues since he was one year old. This was thanks to his uncle Chandramani Yadav who used to volunteer at PAWS. His visit to the NGO got him aware and interested since a very young age. Every time we would go rescue any bird, he would watch with keep interest. Till one day he begun rescuing birds himself and would get them to the NGO.”

Do not be under the misconception that sparrow is the only bird that Hitesh has rescued. This five- year -old have saved creatures like turtle, pigeon, kite, owl and besra too. Sunish inform us that, “Hitesh is very alert when it comes too rescuing creature. One day he saw that a few kids from his locality had captured a turtle from the nearby well. He immediately went and informed his father and they quickly went and rescued the turtle and got it to PAWS.”

When we asked his uncle Chandramani Yadav, when was the first Hitesh rescued a bird he revealed, “that was about two years ago when Hitesh was about three. He saw a trapped sparrow and rescued it,” His uncle also went on to say “I cannot tell you how happy nature, environment and birds make him. Even if we put the internet on, he want to see the different kinds of birds and animals. While walking to school too, he is always on the look out for birds. We can already say that nature is his passion.”

Kudos to you Hitesh! All we from the ya! Desk want to say is way to go little ya!ster. You have made us very proud.