Yesterday I went to Seagull Bookstore with my mother, Maura Aunty, and Malini. We watched a slide show given by wildlife expert, Bittu Sahgal on his "Project Tiger" effort. His message to us was simple, "You can't have a king without a kingdom." What he meant, I think, was that the tigers can't be saved if we don't save the forests first.

We learned about not wasting water or needlessly destroying trees. Hunters kill the tigers, elephants, rhinos for selling every part of their body. The woodcutters are paid to cut many, many trees. We should try to stop these practices in our own way.

Sahgal Sir told us Mother Nature made the jungles and animals, but only man can destroy it. We should use wood and other resources but not waste them. Even in the cities we can make choices that will protect the forestsŠthe rivers and the animals like the mighty Bengal tiger, which is in danger of dying out.

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There is a hand-out from this talk hanging up at Mustard Seeds Library if you are interested.

As you can see by the color of the paper this time, this is also the "GREEN issue" of Mango Smiles! All around the world people are starting to organize projects to celebrate the Earth on April 22nd -- so let's put on our thinking caps too! There are plenty of interesting tidbits on the environment that have been shared by our writers in this issue to get us started.

Some of us have been talking about what EARTHinkers-Calcutta can do to celebrate Earth Day and make it a learning experience for everyone involved. One idea is to make a simple questionnaire for you all to have your friends fill out-- this will be a survey of environmental attitudes of young people in Kolkata. You can get school friends to help ... we need a total of 100 questionnaires or more completed to make it a success. What do you think? Maybe you have other ideas? Please let me know if you are interested in participating in this survey or the creative contest that will soon be posted in the library !!

Go to:

Front cover
Mango Bite: An interview with Marguerite Shaddy by Hia Mookherjee
Young Bean Garden by Saantonu and Manasi Chatterjee
Hunting and Gathering by Maura Hurley
Mexico, I'm Here by Jillian Marcie Molina
"Bag It" by Devashis Mukherjee
Tiger Talk by Saptak Mohanta
Mustard Seeds Poetry
Hoop-Shoot Hooplah ! by Alyssa Molina
A Mela to Remember by Anomita Mookherjee
Off to Japan ... by Maura Hurley
Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head by Doc. Basu
A Big Thank You
Book Review - TRASH !! ... by Chottu
The Litterbug Quiz
mustard seeds Hobby Stop by Chottu
mustard seeds library by Debasis Mukherjee