THIMMAKKA Epitomised Grassroots Conservation

Saalumarada Thimmakka bid goodbye to this mortal world on November 14 at the age of 114. Fondly called Vriksha matha (‘Mother of Trees’), her memories will remain evergreen. The 385 banyan trees that she planted and nurtured over a 70-year period on a 4.5 km stretch of a highway between Hulikal and Kudur in Ramanagara district offer an insight into the zeal of a woman who led a life simpler than an average Indian but had the consistency to translate her vision for the humanity.

Her rich legacy will continue to inspire generations as long as the earth lasts as banyan trees never die. It was during the latter half of the 1990s that Thimmakka's lifetime passion— planting and nurturing trees—burst into the national headlines when a local journalist wrote about her in a Kannada daily.

I and a journalist called upon her in her hovel like home in Gubbi taluk in 1999. The village was so small, it barely had a name and an existence on the map. We had been sent on an assignment by a magazine to see and talk to the humble woman and the green grandeur she had coaxed out of the dry terrain.

We travelled on the dusty road-turned-a-green corridor between Hulikal and Kudur villages with large canopies of these banyan trees casting deep shade over the red soil. Born in a poor household in 1911 (as claimed, but not confirmed), she married a young man Chikkaiah.

Her hut could barely host two of us standing abreast. Husband Chikkaiah had passed away in 1991. Childless, the couple had shared the passion and resilience to plant saplings, water them for years, fence them against grazing animals and tend to them as couples would their children.

Although most saplings were planted during the monsoon season, they would carry pails of water during the torrid summers over the entire stretch. Besides the row of banyan trees, she and her husband together planted around 8,000 trees around the village.

She took us out for a foot march through the verdant corridor and would hug her trees, pat on the trunks just as a mother would do to her grown-up son. As the landscape began to transform, the villagers bestowed on them the honorific appellation 'Saalumarada Thimmakka'.

'Saalumarada' (in Kannada) means 'row of trees'. Mud walls of the house were covered with plaques and garlands. Trees, by then 70-year old, stood strong, sending down roots potentially turning into trunks of future trees.

It was only after a few school kids showed her a chapter written in a textbook that she came to know about her work being recognised. Discovered late, honours, awards and accolades came her way aplenty.

Her work became a benchmark in grassroots environmental conservation and activism, leading to prominence on the national scene. She had become an icon for environmentalists, consistently bringing a spate of awards, e.g., Indira Priyadarshini Vrik shamitra Award (1997), Nadoja Award from Hampi University (2010), the National Citizen's Award by the Govt of India in 2016.

She was conferred with Padma Shri Award in 2019 by President Ramnath Kovind. A shining example of relentless pursuit of a cause by Thimmakka, the banyan trees would inspire generations long after Thimmakka has passed away. She could barely understand terms like ‘ecology’ and ‘environmental science’. But she epitomised them as few could do.