MADURAI: The damp dirt was well-tilled. A pair of black palm dolls lay strewn beside Ashok Kumar while he dug up two 10-inch holes in the ground. He then carefully planted two dolls in each of the holes and covered them up. “So, this is all you got to do. You can either throw these to the ground after you are done playing with them or dig holes and plant them like this,” Ashok told two wide-eyed children as he shrugged off the black dirt off his clothes. A usual chore that never gets boring for him, Ashok has been planting palmyra and kadamba trees and creating awareness about the need to do so, in Madurai city.
M Ashok Kumar, an environmental enthusiast who calls himself as ‘Makkah Thondan’, is a water bottle supplier from Madurai city. Drawn towards the principles of agriculturist Nammazhvar, he has been involved in many activities such as planting trees, promoting palm trees plantation through palm dolls, preventing plastic bottles from polluting the soil and most importantly, carrying out awareness events for school children. Beside him is N Karthikeyan who follows the same trails as Ashok. N Karthikeyan Parkavithai is an environmental enthusiast from Madurai. Despite being a techie by profession, Karthikeyan, over the past decade, has been studying soil and native trees and plants. He has also been creating awareness about trees mentioned in Sangam literature, among children.
Ashok and Karthikeyan were two among the three people who were chosen as the Green Champions of Madurai by the Pollution Control Board (PCB) department on environment day this year. A long time ago, Madurai used to be known as ‘Kadambavanam’ for housing large Kadamba tree forests across the district. However, today the name has been forgotten and can be seen in only Tamil literature. As the fast-growing city has led to a drop in green cover, Madurai seems to have only less than 15% green cover against the national average of 20%. Though it is said the stats have seen a 2% - 3% increase compared to the previous years, the green cover is still critically low.
Ashok and Karthikeyan’s efforts to revive the green cover revolve around planting more trees, reducing the use of soil pollutants, and protecting the green cover. Both have taken a special interest towards the idea of creating a Kadamba vanam in the district, inspired by Tamil literature.
Reiterating the fact that Madurai was referred to as ‘Kadambavanam’ in Tamil literature, Karthikeyan says that at present only a handful of native Kadamba trees are seen in the district.“I worked on documenting the details and current status of Madurai Kadamba trees and published a research book titled ‘Nerungkadambu’. We all love trees, but only a few know about the value of the native trees that used to exist in our neighbourhood. Apart from carrying out plantation drives, I document the details about native trees and their traits, especially the trees that are mentioned in ancient literature.” Karthikeyan added.
Recently, Karthikeyan and his team initiated a special scheme titled ‘Thalamaram of the school’, by planting a native tree that is widely seen in the surroundings of a school, and naming it the head tree of the school. “Students are taught about the traits of the native tree. Various other efforts towards bringing back the kadamba trees in Madurai have enriched the green cover in some areas,” he adds.
Meanwhile, Ashok leads an initiative in the city ‘Negili Nanban’ along with his friends. “As the famous saying goes, ‘Vidhaithu Konde Iru, Mulaithal Maram Illaiyel Uram’, I have been more focused on planting more saplings in the district to increase its green cover. Being in the water supply business, I come across loads of pet bottles dumped on the streets that greatly affect the soil quality. Instead of collecting and sending them to be recycled, I decided to use these plastic bottles differently. From using them as pots to grow saplings at all possible locations across the city to tying these bottles to trees with a hole in them for makeshift drip irrigation, we have been trying to incorporate plastics in the loop of eco-friendly techniques to preserve the environment.
We also cut the plastic bottles in half and fill water in them for the birds and animals visiting the trees,” Ashok says, adding that he saves a portion of his daily earnings to carry out these services without any external funding. Ashok further talks about how palm dolls could be an effective method for growing palm trees. “The forgotten art of palm doll making was one of the major activities that led to the increase of palm trees. We have been taking special classes for children about palm doll making using palmyra seeds. From monkey faces to Santa Claus, we teach them to make dolls of different characters, and advise them to toss them to the ground so that the seed in the fruit could be grown into a tree,” Ashok adds.
(Edited by Lisa Anthony)