I met Sunderlal Bahugunaji in May 1980. About 20 teenagers from Delhi accompanied by one adult, descended on his ashram at Siliyari in Garhwal. We were young, keen proto-environmentalists, city slickers who had by and large never spent any significant amount of time in a village.
Bahugunaji’s recent passing away at the age of 94 after being infected by the virus, brought back memories of that visit to his ashram all of four decades ago and what it meant to us to meet the soul of the Chipko movement and hear his message of conservation in the. . .