Flower power

“I loved trees since childhood and was sad to see how the greenery of this place was being destroyed to make way for infrastructure. While we realised it was absolutely necessary to cut the trees,nevertheless,my husband and I tried to think of a way how to undo it and he came up with this idea of beautifying the place,” she said.

She explains how her husband went about his task. “Looking at the rail tracks,Samar thought of putting up the scene of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali here,where Durga and Apu run towards the railway track. We could not get kash flower here so we had to make do with several colourful flowers,” Bithika said.

The initiative,however,was not a smooth sailing. because It was not like putting flower tubs within the boundary of their residence,they soon realised.

Neighbours and passersby initially complained,saying the footpath was being encroached upon,whereas the couple took care that nothing of that sort happened and that only the portion which was not used by pedestrians was being used for beautification.

Municipal authorities,too,at one point of time objected to their initiative,but when they were convinced that the spots which once had mango trees were being beautified with flower plants,they were pacified.

Next came the problem of people stealing the plants and even destroying them.

“Although we had securitymen and gardeners,it was not possible for anyone to man the place round the clock. So,we decided to resort to Gandhigiri. We kept replacing the pots and plants as soon as they were uprooted or stolen,without complaining against a single person,though in some cases we knew who the culprits were,” she said.

It looked insane and involved a lot of cost initially but it did work. Over time,the incidents of pots getting stolen and trees being trampled came down considerably and now it is a very rare event.

Their work has also inspired neighbours,many of whom have followed suit,although not in such an elaborate fashion.