Crusader adopts a ‘knotty’ way to spread green cheers
LUCKNOW: Everyday, Chandra Bhushan Tiwari, 43, is marrying off some of his daughters. The weddings have been going on since July 3 and would go on till August 3.
A green crusader that Tiwari is, the daughters here are saplings.
He has adopted this novel way not only to make people take away the saplings for free but also plant them properly and take care of them for at least two years.
And since it’s about marriages, there is a doli (palanquin) —a diesel driven goods van — making trips to different parts of the city to send off the ‘daughters.’
To attract people, the van has been named as ‘Paudha Bhandaara’ (plants charity). Wedding and vidaai (send off) songs are helping create a marriage-like ambience.
With folded hands, Tiwari says to people: “Take ‘her’ with you. She is my daughter being wedded to your home. Take care of her, because she cares for people from birth till cremation.”
So far, he has distributed nearly 600 plants. “Nearly the same number of saplings have been planted in numerous parks and vacant tree- guards,” he claims.
This is not the first time that Tiwari has started a drive to distribute plants.
“The mission is old but the method is new,” says the man who has been distributing and planting saplings since 2006.
“I must have planted over 75,000 saplings in UP, MP and Rajasthan and the target is 1 lakh,” claims the graduate from Lucknow University who resigned as a teacher in a central school to propagate the mission green.
His wife, a doctorate in political science, is a teacher at a girls’ degree college in Lucknow.
“Trees were my passion since childhood. I used to sow mango stones and jaa- mun seeds then,” says Tiwari who is distributing saplings of Aonla, Jaamun, Mango, Bel, Peepal, Banyan, Gular, Mahuaa, Neem and Kadamb.
While the Paudha Bhandara is giving saplings for free, it accepts donations. “None of the money invested in the drive is mine. People are coming up and donating money.
A professor donated R 5,000 to aid saplings for the first five days of the drive, a doctor gave R2,500. A petrol pump owner filled up the fuel tank (of the vehicle) to the brim. This is how the campaign is going on,” says Tiwari, who procures his plants from the forest department as well as some private nurseries.