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A mechanical engineer by profession and a botanist by heart,Ingalhalikar has no occupational reasons to visit such remote areas. Infact,its his desire to be close to the nature and study its multiple facets in detail that drives him to such places. But instead of confining his interest to mere admiration for nature,he has gone a step ahead and turned his research into something,which can be useful to other nature lovers too.

After five years of studying and examining various flowers of Sahyadri he came out with a book called Flowers of Sahyadri that had information of 500 flower species. Later on after another five years of painstaking research he published a sequel book with a CD called Further Flowers of Sahyadri that had details of 700 varieties of flowers. Taking us a quarter century back,to the time when his interest towards nature developed,he says,“While working for Telco I keenly observed the project that included landscaping and bird habitat in their premises and my curiosity towards the same grew. Since birds are the most attractive element of nature,I became a bird watcher. Gradually other elements like butterflies,plants and trees were also added to my list.”

But the most remarkable part is that when Ingalhalikar faced difficulties identifying these elements,he decided to study the subject Botany. Though he did not give any formal examination to earn a degree in Botany,he learnt the subject thoroughly and also confesses that it is easy to grasp and is very captivating.

Sharing some memorable instances of his environmental journey he says,“For one particular rare species of plant called Clematis,I traveled to Goa more than 10 times,during which period I must have covered around 20,000 kms but was able to hunt it down only in October 2009.” Similarly he visited Belgaum to locate a tree Gardenia around five times but later on discovered it in Pune itself on Fergusson College Road.

His latest book titled Trees of Pune that is scheduled to be launched by the end of June ,gives details about 465 types of trees in the city. Simultaneously he is working on another book Flowers of Himalayas for which he has already visited Munsiari,Ladakh,Sikkim,Arunachal Pradesh and Valley of Flowers. “I have been working on this book since the last 10 years. I plan to visit some more places because I believe Himalayas has more than 1000 species of flowers,” says the 60-year-old nature lover.

According to Ingalhalikar who deals with nature on a day-to-day basis,the number of trees in Pune has increased phenomenally in the last 50 years. “I am too small a person to comment on a subject like global warming but in my opinion city’s weather has not changed a bit,” he concludes.