Patna: More than 1,000 students on September 10 held candles, placards and floral wreaths as Hindu priest performed last rites for trees that were felled to widen roads and build flyovers in Patna, an eastern Indian city.
The students, members of the Tarumitra (friends of trees) units in Mount Carmel School and Eco-task Force of Patna Women’s College, organized the prayers services to protest destruction of trees for city beautification. They organized the “Pind Daan” for the trees that lined Bailey Road, a main thoroughfare in the capital of Bihar state.
Pind constitutes a round ball made of mixture of wheat and rice flour. It also contains some sesame seeds that are mixed along with some milk and honey. In all seven balls are made for doing the ritual offerings.
As a mandatory rite that is believed to bring salvation to departed souls, Pind Daan is a must to do obligation of all Hindus or followers of Hindu religion. Further, it is also believed that no work can be successfully performed without blessings of ancestors and the doing of Pind Daan invokes blessings of the dead ancestors and deceased parents by helping them come to peace.
Devopriya Dutta, who organized the Patna protest, said the students were not against flyovers and road widening in the city. “We must look for alternatives other than chopping down of the precious trees in the process,” she asserted while talking to the protesters.
Earlier students went on a delegation to the Forest Department and pressed to get large Earth Movers to trans-locate trees from Bailey Road and other sensitive locations to safe places where they could be replanted. Members of the delegation and students of Women’s College, Smirti and Akanksha stated that trans-locating trees was not rocket science and that it was done all over the world.
Principal of Patna Women’s College Sister Marie Jessie expressed happiness that her students took up environmental causes. “This would give them insight into the solutions we all look for,” the Apostolic Carmel sister said.
The students offered special prayers for the dead trees singing a funeral dirge specially composed for the occasion. When the dirge was being sung, they got the priest to chant sacred hymns and offer the traditional rice cakes at the Pindh daan for the dead. They also offered red vermillion marks on the stumps of trees felled for the flyovers.
Carmel School principal Sr. M Serena too supported her students efforts to save trees. “Having lived in Kuwait, in the deserts of Middle East for 18 years, I have come to realize how precious trees are in our lives. Every moment we are dependent on the trees that purify our smoky air and give us fresh oxygen without ever asking for a price,” she added.
Prof. Shahla Yasmin, coordinator of Eco-Task Force, wanted a state policy on cutting trees for developmental activities. “Cutting trees should be the last resort because the Earth needs a hundred years to nurture a large tree on Bailey Road,” she noted.
Fr Siji Varghese, a scholar from Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences, who addressed the students, said it was suicidal to knock off the old trees from the crowded capital city.
The Carmel students offered to observe a day of fasting for the trees by boycotting their meals and walking barefoot. Some sported black ribbons signifying the solemn mourning for their friends.