Felt bad to find Kamyab', the honge planted over a month back by Mr K R Gurukar, being robbed off its top leaves, presumably, by vandals. The leaves couldn't have been eaten away by animals, according to Mr Gurukar, who says cattle don't eat honge.
Mushrooms have now sprouted over this dead stump of the initial tree that had once stood on the roadside of a shopping block on Ramavilas Rd.
This was the status of 'Kamyab' on July 23 - three weeks after it was planted.
Manish Tewari, 45, widely known in Lucknow as Pedwale Baba (Tree Baba) or Bicycle Baba moves about in Lucknow on a bicycle, carrying with him saplings, Khurpi for digging, and bags made of clothes. He plants on any available space. Besides, he goes door-to-door in residential localities handing out saplings and bags to residents. The cloth-bag goes with a plea, asking them give up using polythene bags.
Our own Gurukar,68, plants saplings on roadside; he is better equipped than Tewari for heavy-duty planting on hard soil - shovels, pick axe, and even plastic pots to bring water to the planted saplings.
This honge in front of a shopping block on Ramavilas Rd. has been named Kamyab. It is the only one of its kind on a row of aged roadside gulmohar and neem. Kamyab is Hindi word for 'accomplishment'.So named, because the person who planted this honge, Mr K R Gurukar, has fulfilled what many of us in the neighbourhood had long wished, but couldn't get it done.
And Mr Gurukar doesn't even live in our neighbourhood. We were pleasantly surprised a couple of days back to see him at work, digging to plant a sapling at the gaping hole left by the loss of an aged tree even before I moved in in this area over five years back. Must admit that my enthusiasm for trees is not hands-on. I am not a shovel-and-tokri person. Age (I am 70 plus) can't be a factor, for Mr Gurukar, 68, has been at it for over a decade and is still going strong; has planted a thousand trees in Mysore. 
He is the kind that believes in self-reliance, carrying with him on his bicycle all that he needs for digging and planting. A retired labour dept. official, Mr Gurukar spends from his pension money for the saplings he buys from the forest dept.nursery.
It was Mr K N Sreenivasa, a tree enthusiast in Chamarajanagar Mohalla, who 'discovered' Mr Gurukar for Friends of Roadside Trees, which till about two months ago was little more than a web-driven arm-chair group of tree enthusiasts, His association came as an impetus to get off our chair and do something. We are now in the process of setting up a trust to further our green agenda. A website - TreeFriends - would soon be developed to support the activities of the proposed trust.
This row of honge trees were planted by Mr Gurukar a decade ago, in his Saraswathipuram neighbourhood. It would be our endeavour to put the roadside tree-planter of Mysore on the UNEP map through our blog. Hum Honge Kamyab
We were pleased to reconnect with roadside tree-planter K R Gurukar this morning. Found him at work on Ramavilas Road, not far from the MUDA Circle kerbside, where the four saplings he planted a few weeks back are coming up well. Fresh leaves are showing up on the saplings that have taken roots. 
Noticing us (my wife and I on our morning walk)from a hailing distance across the street,Mr Gurukar appeared equally happy to meet us to exchange notes.Filling us in on his absence from the Mysore roads all these days,Mr Gurukar said he had been away on a teaching assignment in Bangalore .
Mr Gurukar's appearance, shirtless and in soiled shorts, can be misleading. An electrical engineer by training, Mr Gurukar had served in the Karnataka Electricity Boards for a number of years before switching to the union labour ministry as a training officer in Bangalore. His old department stills invites Mr Gurukar to give guest lectures to trainees under a vocational education programme run by the labour dept. in collaboration with a training agency.
If youngsters keen on learning electrical trade volunteer to help Mr Gurukar in planting saplings on roadsides, they could benefit from his guidance in electrical engineering. I know Mr Gurukar loves guiding youngsters enthusiastic to learn. Apart from interacting with them while at work planting on roadside, Mr Gurukar can be persuaded to continue his lessons at his Saraswathipuram residence. Any takers ?
Abhinav, Kanishkar, Sneha and Chichanya. The names these saplings would assume when get planted on streetside in J P Nagar, a Mysore neighbourhood. Idea is to give every tree on one's street an identity. Names bond these saplings with residents ; and, hopefully, give them a better chance of being looked after by the children whose names the saplings bear.
Abhinav (right) and Kanishkar carrying their saplings for planting further up their street. They gave up their game of street cricket this evening at the instance of their neighbour Ravishankar Patil. Ravi, an Air Force officer on home leave, mobilized these school students for tree-planting. Ravishanker, posted in Bareilly, devotes his home leave to the cause of greening the J P Nagar mohalla in which he grew up and the locality where his parents continue to live.
Seeing Abhi and Kanishkar engaged three others - Chinchana, Sneha and Dhanya - joined the green volunteers of 21 Main, J P Nagar. They lost no time getting down to the work on hand.
Abhi and Kanish are helped by Ravi’s mother in planting. As her son, Sqd.Ldr. Ravi Patil put it, these saplings will grow with the school boys on his street ; they would stay where they were planted, as their namesakes who planted them - Abhinav, now in Class III, and Kanishkar, 6th Class - leave school, go to college, and may move elsewhere to move on in life. The trees they leave behind would be there for them, on the very street Abhi, Sneha and the rest of them spend their childhood.
Mr K P Patil recalled that the saplings his son Ravi planted as schoolboy are now nicely grown trees in Bhadravati,Shimoga district. When the Patils moved to J P Nagar in 2003, they planted outside their house a couple of honge,representing their college-going daughter and son. Smitha,now an IT professional is married and has moved to Bangalore.Son Ravishankar, an Air Force squadron leader,is based in Bareilly.
Sqd. Ldr. Patil retains his passion for tree-planting.Saplings for street-planting are home-grown by Ravi’s mother, Lalitha, in their backyard. The honge on their house front provides seeds. Lalitha reuses empty Nandini milk packets by filling them with manure mixed soil. Seeds sown in Nandini packets are nursed into saplings, three to four months old.
Apart from giving them away to other households, Lalitha prepares ready-to-plant saplings for her squadron leader son who comes home on leave every eight to ten months.
Honge planted around MUDA Circle on JLB Rd. in April is coming up well.Fresh leaves have sprouted on the tip of these saplings, planted seven weeks back.These saplings are special for Friends of Roadside Trees, for we discovered Mr K R Gurukar here.
The road on which Mysore University vice-chancellor's residence is located. Stays cool round the year.
Sunday edition of The Mysore Mail carried a report on our gap-planting initiative. If you click on the image, you might be able yo read the text. The Mysore Mail doesn't have an online edition.
Savitha, the Mail camera girl who was on hand to take a picture.
This is about filling in the gap in tree cover on your street. For a start,we persuaded The Mysore Mail to take up planting saplings on bald pavement patches on their street in Lakshmipuram. We have made a start with two saplings - neem and a flowering tree - planted in front of the Mail office 
Devaraja, who is proficient in planting,offered his services at a minimal cost. He went about his job with clockwork efficiency.Those of us assembled in front of the Mail office for the launch our gap-planting programme had a vested interest in being punctual on that Saturday afternoon - our timings clashed with the start of Korea Vs Greece tie in the World Cup. We missed the first half. 
Our VIP for the evening were the Mysore Mail security staff,Shekar and his mate vinay. They did the honours by planting the saplings in the presence of the Mail editor Mr Krishna Vattam and the tree-friends who made it possible - Mr C K Muralidharan, Mr Keshav and Mr Vjaya Raghavan, all three on BEML staff.
They bought and brought the saplings,ordered the bamboo tree-guards, and wired the Green Mysore display board. Our green mantra might sound rather bombastic, for an outfit - Friends of Roadside Trees - that has so far been visible only on this blog - now on Facebook. We would like to think that the tiny step we have taken would snowball into a street-level movement in Mysore.
Even this modest start would not have been possible without proactive help from Murali, Keshav and Vijayaraghavan. Our next move is to 'green' the gap on this street. Tree-friends led by Mr Vattam plan to visit residents along this pavement streatch in the coming days, to seek their support and involvement in our gap-planting initiative.
Saplings planted on the Mysore University grounds are coming up well.ButI don't suppose de-weeding parthenium is seen as part of mass-planting operation undertaken by the forest dept. The university authorities haven't paid attention to the spread of parthenium.
Where we don't want a plant to be growing. On window top of a heritage building on Sitavilas Rd.
It is tree-planting season in Mysore. This was the scene on the Mysore University playgrounds this morning. The state forest dept. supplies saplings. Neem is the preferred variety on this row.
Planting is still in progress.Saplings would come up all around the sprawling playfield. Monsoon is expected to start any day now and watering saplings would not be an issue.
A gulmohar along the Oval Grounds makes a pretty picture this time of the year in Mysore. My neighbourhood has so many such trees that it is a delight taking a walk. A few more roadside gulmohars:
A path littered in red on the Maharaja College campus.
On JLB Rd, in front of the Institution of Engineers.
At MUDA nursery near DC's office.
