Peepul leaves are used to feed goats and cows and, in the past, were also used to feed captive elephants. This use is now being re-popularized. In Odisha, peepul trees have been planted in forest fringes to feed wild elephants and prevent them from moving towards towns and cities in search of food. The Santhal and Gond tribes eat the fruit and young leaves as part of their regular diet. Other communities reserve the small figs and the leaf buds as famine food, which supports them in desperate times such as droughts. The bark, leaves, figs and roots have medicinal value. They are used to treat a host of illnesses, including skin disorders, diabetes, and digestive problems. The bark of the peepul is also used to make ropes. These multiple uses—as a source of food, fodder, fibre and medicine—are still known to many rural residents, but have been forgotten by most of us in the cities.
Peepul trees can grow to venerable ages. They are massive trees when fully grown. The peepul is a symbol of India, planted to commemorate special events. In 2015, when former US president Barack Obama visited New Delhi, he planted a peepul tree at Rajghat, the memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi. Older trees have shaped the identity of many cities big and small. A peepul tree inside the Red Fort in the capital city commemorates poignant events in the country’s quest for freedom, as many rebels were said to have been hung at this spot by British rulers. In the small west Godavari town of Eluru, a century-old peepul was called the perugu chettu (tree of curds). The tree was the centre of a local market for curds and milk. The original tree was uprooted in a cyclone about twenty years ago. A young sapling grew out of its roots, and is now quite tall itself. The curd vendors have moved away, except for a few. But the spot where the tree once stood is still called perugu chettu.
The famous Clock Tower of Dehradun has a heritage peepul that is considered significant in the city. It was planted by Sarojini Naidu. In 2015, the future of the tree was threatened by a proposal to beautify the Clock Tower and a road-widening project. A group of local citizens—Citizens for Green Doon—staged massive protests. They were inspired by the Raksha Sutra Andolan, a movement that started in the Garhwal Hills in 1994, where people tied rakhis to trees, pledging to protect trees. The Citizens for Green Doon wore festive clothes, prayed and also tied rakhis around the peepul’s trunk. They were able to save the peepul, which still stands today, a testimony to the heritage of the city and to its citizens who fought to save it.
Ecologically, the peepul is an excellent tree for cities. It acts as a carbon sink and plays a major role in reducing air and noise pollution. The peepul is also a keystone species, supporting a wide range of biodiversity. In a hostile city, where food and shelter are limited, figs of the peepul feed a variety of birds, who also build their nests here. Monkeys relish the fruit, while the slender loris also seeks shelter in the tree. Fruit bats too seek out the tree for roosting. They are a common sight, in the dozens and hundreds, hanging upside down on the peepul, their high-pitched squalls drowning out the quiet rustling of the leaves. Bats even feed on the leaves of the tree when food is scarce.
The peepul is truly a people’s tree. It is a source of food, medicine and raw material, worshipped by people, purifies the air and protects a number of other species, from birds to monkeys. Given how long it lives, having a peepul tree in a city is a wonderful thing. After all, the tree can be a constant companion in our ever-changing cities, sharing our lives, those of our children, and their children in turn.
Peepul (Ficus religiosa)
Description: A large tree, dome-shaped with a short, thick trunk and shallow grooves (fluted); brownish-grey bark that turns rough as the tree ages.
Flowers: Tiny flowers enclosed within the fruits (figs).
Fruits: Figs are green initially, then turn red and finally blue-black when they ripen.
Leaves: A dark, glossy green. Heart-shaped with acutely pointed tip and wavy margins.
Seasonality: Deciduous tree whose leaves fall in November and December, sometimes extending into January, leaving the tree bare. Figs ripen in April and May.
Family: Moraceae. Plants of this family contain milky latex.
Origin and distribution: Native to India and found throughout the country in its cities, villages and forests.
NINETEEN
TREE-
DEFICIT DISORDER
We live in an increasingly virtual world. Our children, especially those between nine and eleven years of age, spend close to two hours a day in front of a screen, and one in three children may even exceed this. Screen time is harmful for children in many ways, increasing hyperactivity and mental and physical disorders. We may soon end up like the USA, where the average citizen spends more than ten hours before a screen daily, but less than twenty minutes on exercise. It is not surprising that stress and lifestyle disorders such as high blood pressure and diabetes are on the rise.
One of the simplest ways to deal with this is to get outdoors. However, in our polluted and traffic-plagued cities, this is easier said than done. No longer can children go around freely and play on the roads—if they are not exposed to the dangers of traffic, they are certainly breathing in heavily polluted air. The best remedy is to find a green spot, such as a lake or a park, and play a game of cricket or settle down to a family picnic under the shade of a tree. This is stress relief of the most obvious and least expensive kind, but it is something that is becoming increasingly rare in our cities today. Trees and green spaces encourage exercise and daily activity—the further away we live from them, the more likely we are to be obese, sedentary and suffer from diseases such as circulatory disorders (including high blood pressure) and asthma, as well as stress-related mental health disorders.
Most religions across the world recognize the importance of trees. In some parts of the world, a special day is set aside every year to spend time with trees. In India, many Hindus, especially in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, conduct a vanabhojana (a meal amidst trees) each year during Karthika Masam (a month in the Hindu calendar that typically falls between October and November). Families congregate in a park or a forest area, worship a tree (amla trees are considered highly auspicious) by walking around it, winding a sacred thread around it and anointing its bark with haldi and kumkum, after which they settle down to enjoy their picnic lunch. It is a way of paying respect to nature and seeking her blessings. Many memorable Eid picnics have also been held under the welcoming shade of a tree in the park, bringing entire communities together. In Japan, the centuries-old tradition of hanami brings together thousands of people who gather under cherry blossom or plum trees to welcome the spring, hosting day-long or even night-long parties.
Recreation in nature helps us relax, makes us creative, gives us energy and improves blood circulation and health, and helps us reconnect with friends, neighbours and family. We may stop to have a quick chat with a friend or eat an afternoon meal under the shade of a tree. Construction workers tie a sari to a branch, creating a sheltered cradle for their sleeping infants while they toil in the sun. A common sight today, delivery boys sit under a tree while waiting for their next order, while Ola and Uber cab drivers park in the shade of a tree while waiting for their next booking.
Many Americans spend 90 per cent of their time inside buildings—many of us in cities and elsewhere are fast reaching this point, especially if we factor in the time spent stuck in traffic. Yet, over evolutionary timescales, we are most ‘at home’ in natural environments, where we thrived for millenniums. Living in artificial, concrete environments is unnatural for many and brings with it a psychological sense of unease. Contact with trees releases the pressure valve of stress that builds up in city residents.
Environmental psychologists, who have studied how trees help reduce stress, suggest two possible reasons for this. Stress-reduction theory suggests that places of nature help calm us down after a period of intense stress, an automatic subconscious response due to the fact that some natural spaces, such as those with complex elements or with a depth of view, may have been places of plentif
ul food, or safe spaces where predators could be easily observed and evaded in our evolutionary past, hence places where stress and negative thoughts quickly diminished. Another theory, the attention restoration theory, also relates the importance of nature to our evolutionary past, saying that places of nature are ‘inherently intriguing’, drawing our attention, and therefore reducing our focus on aspects of life that stress us. Interestingly, studies show that trees are one component of an ideal green space, which should also comprise some place for grass, herbs and shrubs. Too many trees planted close to each other can sometimes present a threatening appearance and even pose real problems, such as security concerns, in places that have high crime rates. Trees, just like pills, are not a panacea for all ills of urban life, but they can certainly help in many ways.
American journalist Robert Louv was one of the first to highlight the importance of places of nature in cities. He pointed out that the lack of contact with nature makes children depressed and solitary, reduces their creativity and increases the chances of health disorders linked to obesity. Louv called this the nature-deficit disorder. Many scientific studies have shown that contact with nature helps prevent depression and improves well-being. A study in the Australian city of Brisbane found that visiting green spaces, for a time as short as half an hour each week reduced the chances of depression by 7 per cent, and high blood pressure by 9 per cent. Inspired by other research showing similar outcomes, the United Kingdom’s wildlife trusts have been running a large-scale campaign each year called ‘30 Days Wild’. They ask people to engage with nature for a month, giving them ideas of activities through apps and local campaigns across the country. Begun in 2015, the campaign now has tens of thousands of participants signing up each year, with people reporting that they feel much happier, healthier, and connected to nature after they participate.
Patients in hospitals who are fortunate to have a window with the view of a tree recover faster and with fewer complications. Not just this, but a location next to a park or tree-lined lake or avenue raises the price of a property. When we visit a wooded grove, we experience a sense of escape from the city and feel as though we are entering a haven. This lowers blood pressure and offers relief from stress-induced disorders such as anxiety and palpitations. Award-winning ecologist E.O. Wilson described this as biophilia—the innate human tendency to seek out nature. We can see this clearly in the company of children, including those with attention-deficit disorders, who often seem calmer, happier and more relaxed in the company of nature.
Experiments have shown that people who exercise in natural surroundings with trees enjoy greater health benefits than those who exercise in indoor gyms or on concrete roads without trees. The Japanese approach of nature therapy—Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing—which became popular in the 1980s, is believed to have all kinds of health effects, from reducing blood pressure and stress to improving sleep, strengthening friendships and increasing happiness and well-being. A study in the USA by Bin Jiang and other scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Hong Kong found that, after experiencing stress, when a number of adults were asked to view three-dimensional videos of tree-lined streets, they used words such as ‘relaxing, calming, tranquil, at ease, comfortable, peaceful, serene, settled, safe, quiet, a reprieve, mesmerizing, soothing, pleasant, unrushed, undisturbed, enjoyable and worry-free’ to describe their experience. If a video could inspire such feelings, it is no surprise that the real experience would be even more transformative.
We do not need to only seek out forests. Parks and wooded streets can also help relieve stress, not to mention that they also offer opportunities for interaction with others. In informal settlements and slums, where people live in congested environments and open space and tree cover are sparse, even a solitary tree can be a hot spot for social interaction, where women chat and groom each other, keeping an eye on their children playing nearby. At other times of the day, men take over in groups, lounging comfortably against the tree trunks. Tree-lined roads are also beehives of social activity, much more in India than in the USA. A study by K.C. Malhotra and Vijaya Kumar found that a 4.6-km stretch on the Barrackpore Trunk Road in Kolkata had 400 trees in 1986. These supported 205 different kinds of activities. Banyan, peepul and neem were places of worship, while large trees provided shade for rickshaw pullers, cart and tempo drivers. Street vendors sold a range of vegetables, fruits and other products here. Cobblers, barbers, tailors and mini-garages operated here too, while vendors supplied tea and food. Trees planted along streets provide direct sources of income too, especially with species like the Bauhinia, whose scattered seeds are collected by domestic workers and sold to nurseries, or the Indian beech, whose seeds are made into lamp oil in home industries. Tamarind trees along the road are a favourite with small boys who compete to see who can aim best with a stone and bring down the choicest fruit. Small children are also experts in scaling the wall to climb up mango trees within private or public compounds, deftly getting their hands on the raw fruit which is then chopped, mixed with salt and chilli powder, and eaten with relish as a pickle.
Have you noticed the variety of advertisements that are displayed on trees? Sometimes it is a simple A4 sheet pasted, but at other times it could be a larger flex banner hammered on to the tree—damaging the bark. These posters carry advertisements for paying guest accommodations, contact details of agents who can help with PAN cards and passports, and succinctly communicate messages such as ‘meals ready’. In some cases, post boxes are suspended from the trees. While we may stop to drop a letter into the box—an admittedly rare event today—we rarely pay attention to the tree that supports it.
The raised platforms built around sacred trees serve a rich mix of social, spiritual, economic and cultural uses. Worshipped by many, these trees are also places for vendors to congregate with plastic knick-knacks, flowers and fruits, and even pirated DVDs. In the afternoon, we can even see people catching a quick nap in the shade. In the evening, the same space becomes a place for the older residents to collect for lengthy discussions. These platforms also have remnant structures, showing us how they were used in the years gone past. In Karnataka, many such platforms contain small stone receptacles for water, called sisandras. Local residents kept these tanks filled with water for travellers, an old tradition that some residents are now trying to revive.
Trees also act as a rallying point for collective action in a fragmented city, bringing together people from different parts of the city and even different walks of life. In Bengaluru and New Delhi, Salem and Chandigarh, citizens have come together to fight the felling of trees, forming networks that then take on other civic tasks such as waste segregation and civic planning. Research in American cities such as Chicago shows that neighbourhoods with trees have fewer crimes. A number of civic organizations have taken up this finding and begun to plant trees and create community parks in high-crime inner-city neighbourhoods, finding a drop in crime rate and improved safety. Urban festivals recognize the power of trees and celebrate them through tree walks and other activities. Neralu, a crowd-funded Bengaluru tree festival, regularly organizes talks around nature, guided walks in green spaces and activities such as tree sensing and storytelling to help create a stronger connection between people and trees. The iconic Kala Ghoda festival in Mumbai organizes tree walks while in Delhi regular guided walks are conducted in the Aravalli forests.
There is much interest today in trying to understand whether greenery in cities, including trees, can contribute to social cohesion and bringing together people from different backgrounds. The kind of trees we plant can contribute to these exchanges. The peepul is an excellent choice, sacred for both the poor and rich alike. Trees rich with blossoms are a visual treat for the senses. Women, in specific, may prefer particular kinds of trees—for example, the drumstick pods and leaves—as a source of food, used to make curries or added to dal and chapattis—and ficus for shade to carry out mundane household tasks like cookin
g and washing clothes. Many inner-city neighbourhoods dislike trees like Indian beech or jamun whose fruits fall on and stain vehicles. Planting trees in cities is mostly a human exercise. Perhaps with the correct choice of species we can rid our cities of the tree-deficit disorder, making them not just greener, but also friendlier and more social spaces. Spaces which we live in and not just exist in.
TWENTY
DRUM ROLL FOR
THE DRUMSTICK
Is it just a tree? Or is it a superfood?
Wait! It’s the drumstick.
Our neighbourhood tree, a familiar sight in our backyards, the humble drumstick is today touted as a superfood worldwide. In India, we are most familiar with the pods of the fruit, the drum ‘stick’, from which the tree gets its name. Different parts of the tree have found their way into our diet and lives since historical times. Kings and queens as far back as 150 BC included the drumstick in their diets for improved mental and physical health. One fascinating story says that the undefeated army of Alexander the Great finally met its match in the Mauryan warriors who were fed an extract of the drumstick leaf. The extract kept them free of the stress and pain brought on by the war, enabling them to beat the invading Greek army.
The scientific name, Moringa oleifera, comes from its Tamil name murungai (which means twisted, referring to the drumstick pod). The species name oleifera means that it is oil producing. The origins of its scientific name, and its popularity in south India, give us the impression that the tree originated there. Interestingly though, the drumstick is native to the southern Himalayas, from where it spread across the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Sambhar (a lentil-based dish) is a staple in almost every south Indian meal. The dish can be made using a combination of vegetables. But whether it is in the high-rise apartments or in the slums, one vegetable that regularly finds its way into the sambhar is the drumstick. The leaves of the tree can also be roasted and added to this dish. This makes sense. Long before the tree was touted as a modern superfood, India knew much about its nutritional and medicinal value.
Cities and Canopies Page 14