உலக முழுக்க தமிழ் பரவ கரணம் கடல் ஆமைகள் தான்! | Orissa Balu பேட்டி

Interview with Turtle Researcher - Orissa Balu The turtles are very silent creatures. The reason for me to come into turtle research in 1995 is I have seen turtles only in museum and in Pumbukar I have seen a 6ft turtle and ran away when I was small. But in Orrisa I was repairing all the foreign equipment, they called me for one such work but when I went there I saw lakhs of turtles. Usually in places like that they will catch the turtles but that day they caught me because I was running away in fear. Then I fixed the instrument and then the people over there helped me to come out of the fear I had on turtles. They made the turtle to sit on my lap and made me to befriend them. Aamayur was the name from Chennai right from Marina to Neelankarai. because from the stone carvings that was found in Ambur stated this place as "Paluvar kottathu Meladayaranatu Amayur", you have also heard about Thiruvanmayur. These turtles are not something new to this place, it is coming here before many thousand years. The turles like olive ridley, green turtles and leather back turtles are from Pacific ocean, Indonecia, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Peru, the reason for these turtles to travel 20,000 kms is they are coming here to lay their eggs in the same place where there were born. In east and west coast of Americaa and in specifically Mexico's shore all the turles being born there are male turtles because there the temperature is low but in our shores right from Sri Lanka to Orrisa most of the new born turtles are female. These turtles which goes as a baby will come back to the shores in 14 to 15 years for their own reproduction. This practice you can see in the Tamil girls as well, where ever they go they will come to their native place for giving birth, this practice is taken by us from the turtles only. Tamizhs have been protecting turtles for very long time, there are turtle statues in 460 temples in south India more importantly in Tamil Nadu. for examples Perur temple in Coimbatore, kachaleeswarar temple in Chennai, Kalikambal and Kambudeshwarar Temples in Tirunelveli and allover the state of Tamil Nadu in various other temples under the flag posts, this is the significance Tamizhs gave to the turtles. In 6BC the turtle was present in the coins of Pandian dynasty. There are evidences of turtle saving them in sea all these shows the knind of respect tamizhs have on the turtles. In near future if there is a big war or a natural disaster that made all our technology to perish at that time turtles are the only go for reaching the other land masses via sea. There was a proverb in our socitey after 16th centurey "Aama pugutha veedum Amina pugunth veedum vilangathu", in this Amina is portuguese. after which we had a practice of killing the turtle before that if a fisherman hits a turtle with his boat he will come to the shore and cry. A turtle was given a Tamizh gilr's name, a girl who went till Indra Gandhi for the cause of the turtles, her name is Vijayalakshmi Janganathan they call her Vijaya. she reasearched about bamboo turtles, in the honor of her they have given her name to the turtle as Vijayachelys silvatica. These are all the examples that shows how Tamizhs gave importance to the turtles. Romulus Whitaker and Valliappan are the ones who started the turtle research in the crocodile bank and many people like Roy Choudry and Tripati did research on turtles. Karthik Shankar is another imprortant person he is from Chennai as well. Sathish Basker got a name as The Turtle man, all of them have worked for the welfare of the turtles. The turtle is very old one, people term it as a living animal fozzil. The only thing living with us from the dinosaur's time is the turtles. The oldest turtle shell was found at kallimedu at Trcihi in 2001, now it is kept very safe in America's Natural History Museum. This is old as 6 to 9 crore years. We will find the sea fish wealth using the turtles only. The Kumari continent or Lemuria continent researchers like me found the land submerged inside the sea using turtles till Madagascar we found many submerged islands when the turtles swim in 30 to 40m height. When we are researching near the Lakshadeep islands we resqued a turtle then we spoke to ourselves that the turtle has no good regards for us and it went away, but the next day it came to us and befriended with us, from that day i realized that turtles can recognize humans. I have started to see them as a friend. In turtle research we can understand about the ocean streams and living beings in the ocean. We can know about the dangers that can be caused to the humans on seeing the turtles. "Neer indri amayathu ulagu" (There will be no earh without water) people will die without water and people also die with water like Tsunami.. specifically we did not get Tsumani that much where the turtles go. #OrissaBalu #Tamilhistory #kumarikandam