Ambhrini  (9th grade)

Harish bhat anna was our teacher. He was the best teacher. I first met him at Bio-diversity park in Bangalore university. He started explaining about the flora and fauna at the park . I was surprised . I thought how he had learnt so much at such young age, it was interesting.

He used to take classes in our school on every Friday and those days were very interesting. If he missed any of the Friday’s we were bored. He gave us many interesting projects in which one was “the IRIS Project”( Blind Chess). Anna used to encourage us and help us in our project. We also did a project about natural dyes. It was really interesting and we learnt a lot.

Before Harish Bhat Anna started teaching us about nature, I didn’t know that nature has so much to teach us. His classes made me to realise how vast nature is.

I used to get confused in scientific names of various animals and plants. But Anna gave me suggestions which were really helpful to remember their names. He also taught us biodiversity at Anandavana Campus.

In the year 2017 he organized NSIP program in collaboration with Adamya Chetana. In this project I was working on trees got an opportunity to learn a lot.

Due to brain haemorrhage he passed away. This was shocking news and great loss to the society. His daughter Hamsa is young and has lost her beloved father. Our sympathy s are with her.

His contributions to the society has spread knowledge into little minds. I feel nobody in the society can replace him and his work. I want to thank him for sharing his knowledge and his teachings which will remain forever. Thank you Harish Bhat Anna for everything I learnt from you.

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Suhrit S (9th grade)

I have been in Purnapramati for six years. I have also seen many great and knowledgeable people during this period. Among them, one is Harish Bhat Anna. According to me, he was the best teacher for Ecology and General Science. He had so much knowledge that, if he picked up any insect or organism, during our visit, out of school, he was able to tell all the details. Harish Bhatt Anna used to teach and interact with everyone equally.

It was very sad when I heard that he passed away. If he had been alive, many people would have been influenced by nature and preservation of the environment. I will always remember his teachings and learn from his discipline and attitude towards nature.

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Adithi Srinivas (9th grade)

I had a opportunity to meet Harish Anna in the bio-diversity park for the first time. As we were very small children we did not have the capacity to understand his words. but still Harish Anna had great patience that he got down to our level and taught us with lot of enthusiasm. He was picking up a random insect or frog or other animals and used to say huge things about a small insect. The second time when I interacted with him was in the IRIS project. He made us think about new ideas and guided us a lot  in this project.

I am unfortunate that I was not able to interact more with him but I am fortunate that I had a chance to meet him and work in his guidance. The best moment with Harish Anna was while doing a project on NATURAL DYES for our school’s Academic Mela. It is very sad to say that such a person is not with us anymore. This is a great loss for the society. I pray God from the bottom of my heart that his soul REST IN PEACE.

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Anusha P Dayanand (8^th  grade)

My Experiences with Harish Bhat Anna

• I come to know about Flying lizard through Harish Bhat Anna.
• We were accompanied by anna in our Kumara Parvatha visit in 2015.
• My interest in plants / birds is blossomed by anna. To name a few, Bucket tree, swift bird etc.
• He enlightened us on basics of study on trees like finding the height of the tree, finding the significance of the tree, finding the scientific name of the tree and about its origin, family etc.
• His passion towards teaching made us more involved in the subject.
• He was a role model for me for taking interest in environmental studies.
• Today Harish Bhat Anna is not physically with us but his thoughts will be with us forever.

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Manya (9th grade)

“Some people come into your path change your whole direction”

Harish Bhatt anna was also a person who came into our path and changed our whole direction.

A quote says that

“Truly great souls are

PRECIOUS to find

DIFFICULT to leave , and

HARD to forget”

Harish anna was also a same kind of person. Our first meet took place at the Bio diversity park . That was a very special day; we children had a walking encyclopaedia with us. Harish anna could just give us information about anything in the park. He randomly picked a few insects and frogs and spoke about them. i had never seen a person like him before . he could be literally called as an ocean of knowledge. After the first meet he came to our school many times . Each time he visited us he left our curious minds filled with questions and thirst for learning. He gave us exposure towards many projects like IRIS. He made us work on interesting topics like natural dyes and we learned a lot from them . He has also created opportunities for our school to participate in programs like Eyes on Nature and NSIP . Recently I have been working on the NSIP project and our team had opportunities to interact with him , but sadly the great soul left us . When we had been to review meeting we saw his daughter Hamsa and his students who were very dear to him. I really felt bad looking at a small child who had lost her father at such a young age. I heart fully wish that may his soul rest in peace.

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Maithri S Arya (8th grade)

Things I have learnt from Harish Bhat anna

For the first time in my life, I have got interest about birds and observing them

We had a golden opportunity to participate in “Eyes on Nature” where we learnt many new

and amazing things. This is because of Harish Bhat anna.

Anna has taught us about bacteria, virus, dinosaurs, fish, frog, elephant and also how to identify birds, trees and butterflies etc.

At each and every step that we took in Kumara Parvata, anna had one or the other interesting thing about plants/ insects/ birds/ butterflies/ mushrooms. Actually about everything. To quote a few:

A tree which has liquid/ sap which is similar to our blood

Horn Bills’ life style

Poisonous mushrooms

A very rare species of lizard that can actually fly

A non-poisonous snake

Fastest gliding bird – falcon etc

While atop of Kumara Parvata hills, suddenly Balanna felt something in his ear. So everyone were in panic. We didn’t know what to do. Just then, Harish Bhat anna suggested to put few drops of salt water inside the ear and then flush it out. Balanna got instant relief from it.

We learnt many more things from anna. I am very grateful to him. At the same time, I miss him a lot. I just cannot believe we will never ever have anna’s class hereafter

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Anagha Rao (10th Grade)

IN MEMORY OF HARISH BHAT ANNA . . .

We saw Harish Bhat anna for the first time when we had gone on an excursion. As we were walking, he suddenly noticed an insect and picked it up tenderly. He called us and showed it to us and explained about it. He even let some of us hold it in our hands. And from then on, whenever he came to school to take a class or call us to show something interesting in nature while on an excursion, we would gather around him like honeybees swarming around a flower. In fact, once when he came to school to take a class, all the children ran to him and hugged him tightly, together. This shows how much he had touched our hearts in such a short time.

His deep love and interest in nature was contagious. Everyone would listen attentively to him. There was not a single student among us who get bored by his lectures. Everyone eagerly waited for his classes. We were fortunate to have a series of classes about evolution by him. We also did a small research project under him, did a survey of all plants, insects and birds in Anandavana, participated in the ‘Eyes On Nature Program’ in his guidance. But most of whatever we learnt has not been forgotten even after such a long time (When were writing our NTSE, or had a chapter on plant and animal kingdoms, we remembered most of his teachings) because his way of teaching was special.

He would never tell us all the facts about an organism at one go. He would tell the basic principle behind it and let us guess the details, and then give the facts. Like he would say “All animals need to excrete nitrogen, but they stay in different habitats. Fishes excrete in water, reptiles excrete on land. So how should they conserve water? How soluble should their excreta be? And we would answer that the excreta of fish should be highly soluble in water and can have a lot of water. Whereas the reptiles need to save water and their excreta need not be as soluble in water. Then he would say that we are right, for the same reason the fish excrete ammonia and reptiles excrete uric acid.

He would also explain the strange characteristics of plants and animals, in such a way that we would never feel that we were in a biology class. It would feel more like we are reading a good story filled with suspense. He would say “All plants need to be pollinated to produce seeds, which grow into new plants. But how can they pollinate? They are very intelligent creatures. They keep the pollen grains in colourful flowers with sweet smelling nectar. And when an insect comes near what happens? It naturally gets attracted and comes to drink the nectar. But how can the flower get it to take the pollen grains? The flower is a very good strategist. The insect has hairy legs. So it keeps the pollen grains in such a way that they get struck to the insect’s legs. And after drinking the nectar, what does the insect do? It goes to another flower. There it deposits the pollen grains. See how both the insect and the flower benefitted from this?”

Sometimes he would teach us a moral through nature. When we were walking to Anandavana, in the way, he showed us something called a Social Spider. Its web was very thick unlike other spiders’. He said “This is called social spider for a reason. This spider does not live alone. It always lives in a community. Whenever your mother cooks a delicious treat, what do you do? You eat it all yourselves, without sharing, right? But these spiders share all their catch, after sharing equally among everyone. They never fight over their shares. We humans have a lot to learn from such a simple creature.”

Above all what made his classes so interesting was the huge amount of love he had for nature. He would speak of a small grass to a large animal with such admiration that it could not help

capturing the attention of all his listeners.

The only way we can ever pay him back is through learning to see the nature around us through his eyes and spread the knowledge we got by him.

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ನಮ್ಮ ಶಾಲೆಯ ೯ನೆ ತರಗತಿಯ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತದ ಒಂದು ಶ್ಲೋಕವನ್ನು ರಚಿಸಿ ಹರೀಶ ಭಟ್ ಅವರಿಗೆ ನಮನ ಸಲ್ಲಿಸಿದ್ದಾನೆ.