Anand is from a city in the south of India. In 2017, he was working as an engineer at a car part company.
One day that year, Anand and his friends passed by a smelly, dirty lake. All of a sudden, he tripped(绊倒) and fell into the lake. When his friends pulled him up, he remembered that this lake used to be clean years ago. "Why is it so dirty now?" he wondered.
Something had to be done about it. Anand wanted to get his company to help clean up the lake. He did a lot of research for the project. He found that this lake had once been part of a big network(网状系统) of lakes. About 1, 500 years ago, the Chola Dynasty(朱罗王朝) built this lake network to supply water for farmland.
Anand spent four months studying the Chola methods. All this work won him a social responsibility grant(补助金) from his company.
What's next then? Get people to join his project! Luckily, Anand found hundreds of volunteers in the company. They began to work right away.
By clearing the lake of waste and muck(淤泥), they opened up its blocked(堵塞的) waterways. Then, they built five small islands with the muck and grew many plants on them. Six months later, when Anand boated on the clean lake, he was filled with joy.
Later, Anand left his job to set up a non-profit organization(非营利组织). The NPO works to cleanup more lakes. So far, it has cleaned up 35 lakes in the city. Anand's work has not only improved the environment, but also provided clean water for farming and drinking.