A tree thats almost gone

When sapgreen first appeared in Deccan Herald, we had a call from a person. The lady asked if we had a "Pagade tree". Now whats that ? Back then we were not specific about the type of tree. We just wanted someone to plant a tree. I said "ma'm, sorry we don't have that" Few minutes latter her daughter called to congratulate us on our venture and she asked us what exactly do we do ? Few minutes of talk and I realized they just loved trees lot more than anything. They protected every branch of a tree that surrounded there neighborhood, requesting,yelling at people not hurt the tree. The Khan's were a great tree lovers. Yet they failed to procure a single sappling of "Pagade tree". This is when we realized the importance of "the type". A little research on this tree (You fill find it here it's called MIMUSOPS ELENGI L) and we came to know there are only few trees of this left in Mysore, yes just 3-4 of them, after lot of searching around, I finally found THE TREE, in the " Chandravana Garden" of Mysore. This is a garden maintained by govt. ayurvedic hospital.

Khan's loved this tree, the fruit was a favorite for her father. It seems it was lost generations back, people haven't heard about such a fruit for long. It is now standing tall as a laboratory specimen.This is when we promised the Khan family to get it for them, now it is a part of sapgreen's goal to get these rare trees back to life. My next visit to Chandravana will be this saturday, I will try to get some pictures an procure the pagade fruit and see if one of our nurseries can grow it back for us. I will get some pictures of this gorgeous lesser known garden of Mysore. This is a place every tree lover should visit once. It is opposite to University swimming pool. It's a beautiful forest with lots of ayurvedic plants, you can try some of these and believe me you will have fun with lot of tongue twisting and sweet leaves.

If anybody is looking for a rare species of a Tree, let us know and we will do our best to procure it for you.

Elections, sapgreen

In this blog i would like to talk on two things. One about elections and another thing about sapgreen status.

ELECTIONS:
Somehow this time's election commission's strict rules alongwith the supreme court guidelines and sincere attempt by district administration, we are seeing that this election is turning out to be less harmful for GREEN. What i mean is that, more the plastic buntings, flex posters, plastic flags, more it is against the environment, and against green. I am happy that this time, we are not seeing much of these buntings which harm our environment. We have to surely remember the CEC Gopalaswamy. Well done sir.


SAPGREEN:
My friend told me the sapgreen had finished planting some 160 saplings. This is a great number in a small time. Meanwhile i'm yet to plant my sapling through sapgreen. So we have to be happy that sapgreen project is on its way being successful.

I saw the plant database on sapgreen website. Some days ago i had seen only a spreadsheet of the tree database. Then i thought of this idea of using database and querry system. And the software guys have used their skills very very well. Kudos!

And a post on sapgreen says that now onwards a payment can be done through credit card. Great deal of course. Now anyone far from mysore can gift a tree through online payment. Online payment can be done through this page.

It is also a good news that sapgreen has been now associated with UNEP's plant billion trees project. Way to go ahead.

I was busy from 2 weeks with other works. I could not attend the planting drive organised on 20th of april.

Sapgreen is going in a great way. Being a company, revenue is very important. 160 saplings and 300 rupees per sapling means good revenue in short period.

Marketing ideas for sap green

I liked the concept behind sap green mainly because they are wiping off this "charity" and bringing in "profit". At least this should encourage a fast development. If the same idea had been for charity also, the critics would have dubbed it as "hidden profit motives". Now that the motives are clear - profit along with clean environment, we need to think like businessmen on how to market this idea in a better way. More saplings and doing in large way means reduction in cost rates. So let us give our advice to sap friends on marketing their product.

My ideas (some are Ashwin's and his friend's ideas)

1. Approach foreigners through yoga classes.

2. Small boards about sap green in book shops.

3. Publicising through schools, colleges

4. Approaching Mysore university, so that it can make an understanding (or sign an MOU) and offer foreign students, visitors and delegates to plant saplings through sap green.

5. Contacting travel agencies who bring foreigners and travellers.

6. Contacting financial establishments like FICCI or industrial associations who usually have delegates from other places.

7. Introducing green greeting cards in Archies and other greeting stores. May be we can keep an attractive poster in each shop to attract the card buyers. For example: "Think again, do you want to buy your dear ones greeting cards which can reduce carbon emission and bring down global warming? Then buy green greeting cards." If sap green can offer an attractive commission, shop owners may agree.

8. Publicising at bakeries where people go to buy cakes for birthdays.

9. Boards at wedding and convention halls.

10. Boards at temples, churches, mosques.

11. Introducing affiliate links for bloggers and websites. (see this link to know more). Mozilla firefox used affiliate links to encourage and promote the browser.

12. If we cannot give speeches at each college/school about sap green's plans, we can at least try to notify this by putting posters on their college notice board.

13. Jayciana (annual fest of JC college) is coming very soon. May be sap green can open a desk at JC campus for whole week where volunteers will register a sapling. May be if there is some open space in JC college, we can take permission from college authorities and plant saplings. Now final year students will be leaving the college in 2-3 months, as a memory, they can leave a plant in JC campus or somewhere in the vicinity. Since the friends at sapgreen are SJCE alumni, we can expect their junior students to co-operate better.

Since this is for a good cause, we can request the shop owners to freely display the boards, or else at low charges. Please keep your ideas also flowing in.

At sapgreen's inauguration

From left: Mr. X, Hyder Ali Khan, Snake Shyam, Ramalingam (not sure?), Krishna Vattam, Mr. Y, Venkatesan

A view of the park.

Hyder Ali Khan, Krishna Vattam, Snake Shyam, Ashwin planting a sapling. Sorry to those guys whose faces got cut :P

I thought IST - Indian stretchable time could be applied to Sapgreen's inauguration programme and went at 4:45pm though it was scheduled at 4pm. Given that some officials were invited I felt, it was not a matter going late. Moreover it was sunny evening. When I approached the place- A park near JSS High School, Vijaynagar, the programme had already begun some 15 minutes ago.

The speeches were over, and everyone was holding a sapling in their hands and heading towards the pit. I and my friend Karthik carried a neem sapling and headed towards and pit and planted it. We did plant 3 more such saplings. By then we realised that all the saplings were not meant to be planted and we stopped.

My main intention of attending the programme was to meet the people whom i had met online. First I had seen Ashwin's photo and I mistook him as Anil and introduced myself. Then there was Mr. Venkatesan (MGP) whom I know from a year or two. When he called me name, Mr. Vattam recognised me, smiled and talked to me. I think he was delighted to see me, and even i was. Mr. Vattam was so particular about planting a mango sapling. But no mango plant was available there. GVK advised him that Mango trees were difficult to survive in such public places and would better survive at protected areas.

Then I thought of meeting GVK. He was there standing like a disciplined coach of a football team and assisting others to plant the trees and giving tips. Both Vattam and GVK were as energetic and attentive like youths. At this age they both are so active, we youths should learn from them.

Now coming to the programme, it was more of a meeting and exchanging ideas. We planted several trees by mistake for free of cost :) . Snake Shyam was present. I heard that ER Ramachandran was also present at the venue. But I couldn't meet him. I have been a fan of his funny writings on churumuri blog.

There was a short introduction about umbrella trees or shaamiyana trees by one Mr. Hyder Ali Khan who had grown a ground full of trees like shaamiyaana. He showed some newspaper clippings.

Then we had a short chat with Ashwin asking about their future plants. He and his friends have some good plans to increase the number of sapling sponsors. Wishing sap green friends all the best-est-est luck for their future plans.

Will leave you with a Kannada song which was broadcast on Doordarshan Chandana few years ago:
ಗಿಡ ನೆಡಿ ಗಿಡ ನೆಡಿ
ಗಿಡಾ ನೆಡಿ
ಮನೆಯ ಮುಂದೊಂದು ಗಿಡ ನೆಡಿ
ನೆಟ್ಟ ಗಿದಕೆ ನೀರು ಹಾಕಿ, ಬಾಳು ಕೊಡಿ