Today we trailed to Upper Kanheri at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, which is the lung of our metropolitan city of Mumbai. There were 10 participants right from the age of 8 years to 45 years. As per, google dictionary, trail means, “walk or move slowly or wearily”. And today that’s what exactly our group did. Special thanks to our curious participants as well as an excellent naturalist Nilesh Mane who guided us.
According to me like any facilitation, key to facilitating the trail is to be in the moment, be aware of what is present in the environment, simplify narration so that participants can easily connect, encourage their curiosity and seek for an opportunity of transference. 
Now a days due to environmental hazards, bombardment of messages on social media and several awareness campaigns done by social activists, we all talk about saving the environment but hardly can contribute towards it. I feel one of the major reason for this to happen is absence of true motivation. Unless and until we don’t love our nature, urge to take an action to protect it will never rise. And to love something we have to spend time with it, hug it, listen to it, experience it, appreciate it. Which will never happen by moral talks or forwarding msg on social media. For that we would have to go on a date with nature. Once we experience it first hand, I am sure true change will begin. Because change doesn’t happen from mind but from heart. The problem is in our today’s lifestyle we have completely gotten disconnected with nature. We don’t even think before cutting trees, if they come our way. But I am sure once we will start dating with nature, it won’t be that easy to cut the trees.
One more thing which Nilesh shared was how nature has been the motivation for so many innovations like Japan’s Bullet train. In Japan,the bullet train was having troubles with sound waves created due to its speed. This sound was so loud that it was affecting the surrounding environment as well as buildings by damaging their structures. Eiji Naktsu, a passionate bird watcher, general manager of the technical development department of bullet train found its solution by observing a kingfisher bird attacking its prey. He noticed that the shape of kingfisher’s beak is playing one of the major role’s in creating a surprise attack. Its beak helps the kingfisher in cutting through water with minimal noise and ripples. This is how he came up with the brilliant idea of restructuring the front shape of the bullet train…
He rightly said that we spend so many resources on experimenting for innovation but if we observe nature closely there are so many proven examples. Nature is experimenting, evolving for millions of years. There are so many examples of innovators who were motivated by some natural phenomena.
So whatever motivation we have, to connect with nature, going on trails is one of the best ways to spend your weekend with your family 