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| Mundan, Pengattiri, Palakkad |
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What would Nature do if we cut one branch of a tree? She would shoot forth half a dozen forking branches in an ever so gentle manner. And what would 82-year-old Mundan do when some of the trees he has planted by the roadside are cut by the authorities? He would plant more of them in the true Gandhian mode of protest.
“I feel sad when somebody cuts and destroys trees. But an illiterate poor man like me with no support from any organization or influential people cannot do anything to prevent that. What I can do is to plant more and more trees so that it will grow and give shade to people and protect the environment,” he says.
5 decades ago, Mundan had an inner urge to plant trees everywhere. So he started planting trees in every vacant land – roadside, Government offices, public offices, markets, in front of shops and houses. Today, hundreds of trees planted by this illiterate daily wage worker stand tall along the Cherpulassery-Pattambi road. And Pengattiri in Nellaya panchayat - from where he hails – is almost like a forest area, with huge trees of different types, ages and size.
“My wife Kali and I used to spend every Sunday to water and nurse the young plants. We used to bring water from the nearby pond or paddy fields to water the young saplings,” he says about the travails of bringing up the plants.
Mundan was a daily wage farm worker before ill-health forced him out of it 2 decades ago. Of his 5 children, one son died and another is down with paralysis. He finds it difficult to look after the son as he gets almost nothing from his small toffee shop.
Yet, despite his personal tragedies, poverty and old age, Mundan continues to plant more and more trees.
Mundan beside a banyan tree he has planted
Courtesy:
G.Prabhakaran, The
Hindu, October 27, 2005
Contributed by: Administrator
