Feeling in love? Go hug a tree

The Hindu Mahasabha’s publicity stunts notwithstanding, we take the phrase ‘love is all around’ too lightly, Valentine's Day or no Valentine's Day. Look around, you’ll see that the greatest dispensers of unrequited love are trees. Their sagacious shade, their poetry-inspiring beauty, their bounty of fruit and, most of all, their silent catalysis of love. Where would that old Bollywood chestnut of running around trees be if not for… trees?

Last year the city of Bangalore, which has over the decades been making a mockery of its sobriquet of Garden City, revisited its sylvan heritage with a festival to celebrate trees. NERALU — Kannada for ‘shade’ or ’shadow’ — was held over a February weekend at Bal Bhavan in Bangalore’s Cubbon Park and other venues and drew an enthusiastic crowd of adults and children alike. This year, the festival has expanded its canvas to encompass a diverse array of subjects.

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• A Walk in the Park

Bound by a common love for trees, naturalists, ecologists, artists, technologists, storytellers, homemakers, photographers, students and many more citizens from all walks of life have come together to put together NERALU, a completely crowd-funded festival. This year’s edition begins February 7 at Doddamavalli Katte near Lalbagh. Kattes are platforms around trees and here, Peepal, Neem and Banni trees stand tall along with snake stones and the people who revere them. Local communities have been using this space for years, and NERALU’s focus is to draw attention to the cultural practices and old-world charm that still flourish in many parts of the city.

Workshops, talks, audio walks, performances and art installations will be hosted at NGMA (National Gallery of Modern Art) on February 7. Speakers include distinguished ecologist and energy expert Dr T V Ramachandra, Vijay Thiruvady (who leads Bangalore Green Heritage Walks), ecologist K N Ganeshaiah and heritage activist Suresh Moona among others.

Sunday, February 8, will see a variety of tree walks, which will introduce Bangaloreans to trees through cultural and ecological narratives. Not to be missed is a unique photo walk where participants will record tree-stories in various localities. A mini-NERALU event will also take place at M N Krishna Rao Park, Basavanagudi on February 8, with activities that will bring together people of all age groups to enjoy their Sunday morning in the company of trees.

The following weekend, on Saturday, February 14, the festivities will move to Bal Bhavan, Cubbon Park, with art activities and cultural performances that bring a grand closure to the NERALU tree celebrations. Two interesting ongoing public participation projects that the organisers ran over the weeks building up to NERALU were the Neralu Photo Project and the Neralu School Project, which aimed to bring Bangaloreans of all ages closer to trees by engaging them in fun and informative projects. This year, too, NERALU is crowd-funded with the support of over 150 citizen donors and public participation is free.

It is but fitting that NERALU culminates on February 14, the day that various small-minded political outfits have chosen to declare war on "imported cultures". In Bangalore, which has welcomed and embraced all cultures as it has trees indigenous and exotic, only one language will be spoken: the language of love. For trees, for nature, and for humanity.

If you are not in Bangalore and unable to join in the festivities in person, click an image and email it to hugatree@neralu.in with the subject line #hugatree. The image will instantly appear on the NERALU website www.neralu.in/hugatree

Allow me one last potshot: I’m going to hang around a nice fragrant cannonball tree on Valentine’s Day. And I’m going to whisper aloud that I love her. Will the Hindu Mahasabha kindly arrange to get us married off? My wife won’t mind.

NERALU Schedule