Here are some people and places that provide a soothing shade amidst the reckless speed of Kochi life.
Plastic-free home
Although no signboard outside the home proclaims it, it has been more than fifteen years since Perumpilli Paramel house has become a plastic-free zone. Sajan Alexander the head of the house does not allow even a plastic kit from outside to fly down into the yard. The other members of the house also do not have a difference of opinion.
Sajan says that it is the sight of kits piling up in a canal adjoining their earlier home that made him a plastic hater. People in the neighbourhood throwing their wastes in plastic bags provided a daily morning sight. The canal began to stink as plastic accumulated and the water flow stopped. Some others found joy in piling up plastic and setting fire to it. As the environment was filled with plastic smoke Sajan started thinking of a way to put an end to it.
This is how he got rid of plastic bags from his life. Sajan was keen on becoming a model himself before advising others about plastic. Thus, Paramel house became a forbidden land for plastic. Wife Reeta and children Oshin and Ritya Carol have been firmly supporting him. They do not venture out to a shop without a cloth bag in hand. It does not matter if it is fish to be purchased or meat. If the fish is to be bought from a place nearer to home Sajan would carry a vessel. Initially it was a curious sight for onlookers. Sajan says with a smile that many of those who smiled then have now switched over to his method.
They say No to plastic covers even when they go shopping in other places. He offers cloth bags to those who come to buy gold in his jewellery shop. Sajan’s environment love is not confined to plastic hate. Rain water is used at home for eight months of the year.
This is managed by means of huge tanks installed overhead and underground. This home had plenty of water to drink even when the land reeled under drinking water shortage. They are also insistent on not using drinking water in bathrooms at all. They keep thirty hens at home to ensure waste disposal is done there itself. Many people might ask what difference it will make if a single family gives up plastic. But Sajan replies that it is better if even a single plastic kit is prevented from touching the earth. He further hopes that humble models could sometimes lead to big changes.
Trees are no playthings
Green Nature Club activists are behind the trees surrounding the Rajiv Gandhi stadium in Kochi. Around 40 trees, each 15 years old, line the area of the stadium. The felling of nearly twenty trees for the purpose of stadium construction remains like an unhealed scar in the memory of the club members.
The stadium was a marshy land infested by cattle when the trees were planted. Trees losing their roots in the soil like arayal, peral, bael fruit, blackberry, cassia, mango, deodar, cotton, kalasa, vaka, arya neem were planted on the side of the land at equal distances and grown by club members led by Albert, Antony, Suresh and Krishnan. The bael fruit tree blossomed and laden with fruit in the tiles paved pavement is a rare sight to behold.
They still keep an eye on trees they planted on a Thiruvathira Njatuvela day a decade and a half ago. A little lapse of attention led to the axe falling on nearly twenty trees.
The Wonder Forest in five cents
A forest in five cents? It is in exactly on five cents of land that the tiny tots of Kutipuzha School created a forest. The children say that it is not the size of the forest but the message that it conveys that is important as far as they are concerned.
Kutipuzha Christuraja High School is the proud owner of this forest. The students have nicknamed the tree fraternity that they lovingly nurtured as Kuttivanam. They created the artificial forest as part of Manorama Nalla Padam (Good Learning) project.
The forest was set up under the guidance of the school’s Scouts and Guides. The forest is on five cents land on the side of the Nedumbassery – Paravur road belonging to Kutipuzha St. Sebastian’s church. It thrills the teachers and students to see the saplings that were planted six years ago and nurtured now into grown up trees. The local merchants and auto rickshaw drivers who joined in the nurturing also have reasons to be proud. Today birds and butterflies arrive to set up nest here.
There are around fifty trees here including mahogany, thani, ilanji, maruth and mandaram. Now the school aims to build a compound wall and benches so as to allow to help local people also to avail of nature’s shelter.
Rare, nay rarest of rare is this forest in the city
Some 1800 varieties of plants and trees in a corner amidst the din of the city. The 1.5 acre plot of Gurukulam Alunkal house in Thammanam Sree Narayana Devar Road is a treasure chest of rare plants and trees. Retired bank employee A.V. Purushotha Kamath nurtures them.
Chendurunni which was used for constructing temples and palaces, Red, blue and yellow Kadambu which are facing extinction, the Fish Poison Tree whose bark the tribals crush and mix in water to catch fish, Anaviratti whose leaves can make one sick by touching and which even elephants fear, Sisumbha which provided shelter to Sita in Ashoka forest, Maravuri, Medha and Mahamedha plants which belong to Ashtagandha, the list of rare items goes on. Sisumba which emits a little extra oxygen was brought from Sri Lanka.
Apart from these, there are varieties of Triphala, Trijatham, Dasamoolam, Trigandha and Nalpamaram. Kamat started collecting trees with the intention of preserving extinct trees and plants. Trees and plants from several directions and forests arrived at his doorstep. Before long he started studying more about plants. Today, researches from various parts of the country and from abroad land here in search of rare plants. Kamat says that it is a highlight of the place that you can see all types of plants and trees in one location.
Wife Ashalatha, children Vinaya, Chitra and Anand and daughter-in-law Shyama offer encouraging support. The attempt now is to reach out to other people the greenery encapsulated in 1 ½ acres. He won the Biodiversity Board award in 2013 and the Vanamitra award of Forest Department this year. Kamat carries the seeds of home grown trees with him while going on long journeys. After seeing the condition of the soil at his destination places he sows them there and returns. Planting sapling needs permissions. This does not need that, Kamat clarifies. Many have later thanked him for trees that have been grown this way.
Tree companion
If N. Ramachandran blindly believes in anything it is trees – as big as him, older than him, younger generation. They all adorn the compound of Aryanchery madom in western Kadungalloor. Most of these trees had set foot on the compound led by the hand by him.
The 80 cents land is filled with green and boasts of trees like fifteen mahogany, six ilanji, fifteen mango trees, teaks, yachaka tree, muttapazham, hanuman jasmine, yellow bamboo, Buddha bamboo and countless plants. On the courtyard is a giant tamarind tree. This tree is the only living being older than Ramachandran here. It is wider than the embrace of two people joining hands. Covering the sky it towers above the house with its humongous arms spread.
Three decades ago while working for Survey of India Science and Technology, Ramachandran started planting trees along with a colleague in 100 acres of land allotted for the Department in Hyderabad. Ramachandran who fights relentlessly for nature even at the age of 81 has filed several cases and petitions in matters of agricultural land levelling, Periyar encroachment, pollution, erosion, etc.
Many paddy fields in Alangad Block Panchayat has escaped levelling thanks to Ramachandran’s intervention. He spends time with the friends in his compound after reaching home at the end of his daylong wandering of courts and government offices fighting legal battles. This rejuvenates him for the next day’s battles.
Environment worship
Eroor Puthenkulangara Siva temple committee workers are elated at beautifully blending the nearly three acre temple premises with flowering trees and fruit-bearing trees. The committee had set out four years ago to lead the temple premises from scorching in the midday sun to the pleasing condition of shade and coolness.
Special corridors were first designed taking the temple complexes fully into account. Twenty seven trees were first planted signifying twenty seven days. Now the temple is abundant with the breathtakingly splendours sights of hibiscus, ixora, nerium, white orchid, betel leaf, basil, citruses, arecanut, coconut and apple.
Committee office-bearers P.M. Girijavallabhan and Secretary T. Anilkumar and team led by Dr. R. Padmakumar have arranged this blend of environment and devotion.