Cities and Canopies Read online

  HARINI NAGENDRA and SEEMA MUNDOLI

  CITIES AND CANOPIES

  Trees in Indian Cities

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  1. A Khichri of Trees

  2. Jamun: The Tree at the Centre of the World

  3. All Creatures Great and Small

  4. The Shaggy-Headed Banyan Tree

  5. Talking to Trees

  6. Palms: Superstars or Has-Beens?

  7. Fun with Trees in Art and Play

  8. Tamarind: The Firangi Indica

  9. Trees and the Environment

  10. The Great Eucalyptus Debate

  11. Sacred and Venerable

  12. Amaltas: Golden Chandeliers with Buzzing Bees

  13. Native and Exotic: Identity Crises of Trees

  14. Scarlet Silk Cotton

  15. The Fellowship of the Grove

  16. Neem: The Bitter Tree of Wellness

  17. An Inordinate Fondness for Trees

  18. Peepul: The People’s Tree

  19. Tree-Deficit Disorder

  20. Drum Roll for the Drumstick

  21. Trees of Recipes and Remedies

  22. What Lies Ahead?

  Scientific Names of Trees

  Sources

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  Advance Praise for the Book

  ‘Cities and Canopies is packed with fun facts, engaging stories, and superb tales and factoids about Indian city trees’—Pradip Krishen, author, environmentalist and film-maker

  ‘Just try this: Walk by or be driven through any city, refusing flatly to look at any building or read any hoarding, with your gaze fixed only on the trees you pass. The impact is amazing. They embrace you, engulf you and transport you into the world of their fragile fascination and that of our life in nature. Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli do precisely that through this gripping journey into the world of trees, so close to us and yet so spurned by our cement minds and steel eyes. One closes this book with just one thought: thank you, trees, for just being what you are, where you are’—Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former IAS officer and former governor of West Bengal

  ‘Cities and Canopies is a splendid book about trees and their many associates, ranging from birds and bats, wasps and ants to skinks and snakes, with fascinating titbits about science, such as how trees communicate with each other with the help of the fungal network connecting their roots; about history, such as how Kabir’s great banyan tree on Kabirwad Island in Bharuch might in fact be much older and be the one that Alexander described; about how humans relate to trees, including their roles in games and art; their medicinal uses and how to concoct a jamun squash. A very enjoyable read that I highly recommend to all lovers of nature, culture and food’—Madhav Gadgil, ecologist, writer and columnist

  ‘This book challenges the urban–rural divide in our minds. It helps city dwellers understand the dangers of nature-deficit disorder and rediscover the biophilia—a love for nature—that exists in us all. Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli do this with joy, professionalism and deep knowledge. They introduce us to the secret language of nature, such as the silent communication between the glorious amaltas tree and its carpenter bee pollinators. They frame interesting questions such as can urban trees communicate with each other as well as those in forests? They also help us re-examine our animosity towards immigrant species, reminding us that the “sriphala” (the sacred coconut) and our very own tamarind are in fact exotics. A feast of a book, Cities and Canopies is timely and important for young people to read, and act upon’—Rohini Nilekani, philanthropist, journalist, author and social activist

  For three generations of my family who love trees: my grandmother, Thungabai; my mother, Manjula; and my daughter, Dhwani

  Harini

  To the frangipani tree of my childhood on whose branches my brother and I spent summer afternoons lazing, reading and planning our next adventure

  Seema

  ONE

  A

  KHICHRI

  OF TREES

  Most of our grandparents were born in the villages of India—most of our grandchildren will be born in its cities. The entire world is experiencing a massive shift towards cities, and India is very much a part of this trend. One in every three Indians already lives in cities. In twenty to twenty-five years, one out of every two Indians will live in cities, with the total population in cities more than doubling in this short span.

  This fast growth of cities puts incredible pressure on the country’s ecology, as forests disappear, rivers and wetlands shrink into thin polluted slivers, and vistas of green and blue turn into horizons of concrete. But India’s cities are not divorced from nature. In fact, many of them are now greener than their surrounding areas. Over centuries, they have been assiduously planted with trees, greened and nurtured by successive kings and commoners.

  India’s cities derive so much of their character, identity and liveability from the trees that grow there. From tree-lined streets where we shop for vegetables and clothes to wooded parks and playgrounds where children play and adults gather to walk while they talk and sacred trees at intersections where nature is worshipped in the heart of the madding crowd—our cities would be unrecognizable, unliveable, without their trees.

  Human choices and historical events have shaped the set of trees we see in each city. Most texts about ancient India describe towns encircled by rows of thorny trees, planted close together to protect the city from invasion. Within the city, public parks and waterbodies were landscaped with trees and flowering plants, while wealthy and royal households maintained residential gardens for private enjoyment. Orchards of fruiting trees provided fruit and income, while temples had groves of fruiting and flowering trees and plants. At street corners large trees were strategically planted, with platforms under them where people could sit together. Groves of large sacred trees like banyan and peepul provided serene sanctuaries outside the city walls, inhabited by saints and philosophers.

  Other rulers entered with their influences. The Mughals brought in the idea of the Persian and Islamic gardens, which other rulers like Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan took to Mysuru, and the kings of the Bahmani Sultanate to the Deccan Plateau. The Marathas had their own style of gardens, as did the Rajputs. Portuguese, French and British colonialists added their own influences. In modern times, industrialists and landscapers have even brought in influences of faux Californian landscapes all the way from Silicon Valley. Our cities are now a fascinating mishmash, a khichri of trees, built on a base of local dal and rice but constantly infused with new ingredients and spices imported from different parts of the world.

  We cannot imagine a life without trees. But trees mean different things to different people. A beautiful sequence in Asvaghosha’s Buddhacarita (a first?second century CE poem on Gautama Buddha’s life) describes women pointing out the trees in the garden of Padmakhanda, just outside the Sakya capital of Kapilavastu, to the Buddha.

  See, my lord, this mango loaded with honey-scented flowers, in which the koel calls, looking as if imprisoned in a golden cage.

  Look at this Asoka tree, the increaser of lovers’ sorrows, in which the bees murmur as if scorched by fire.

  Behold this Tilaka tree, embraced by a woman with yellow body-paint. See the Kurubaka in full bloom, shining like lac just squeezed out, which bends over as if dazzled by the brilliance of the women’s nails.

  And look at this young Asoka tree, all covered with young shoots, which stands as if abashed by the glitter of our hands.

  The romantic image of trees that this poem conjured was very different from the directions of Buddha’s thoughts. He retr
eated from this conversation, eventually renouncing the city altogether and making his way to the forest in search of a higher truth.

  Trees mean different things to different people—for some they are prosaic sources of fruit and wood, while for others they offer beautiful flowers that fascinate and dazzle, philosophic places of contemplation or something entirely different. All shades for all people, often bringing multiple meanings to the same person as well.

  As a resident of Bengaluru memorably put it in one of the city’s many tree events, ‘Who would be foolish enough to dislike a tree?’ referring to us, the audience of tree lovers gathered at the meeting.

  Indeed.

  We write this book as two city dwellers who love trees. We hope that you find something of your interest tucked in the pages of this book. Trees in Indian cities are an endangered lot. The older and more beautiful the trees in a city, the more likely it seems that they are in the firing line—cut down to make way for a wider road, metro line, apartment building or a mall. Citizen protests and community pressure seem to be the only way to save trees. Information is a key to this battle, but so is emotion.

  This is not a field guide to trees in a specific city. There are a number of books on Indian cities, such as Pradip Krishen’s much-admired Trees of Delhi, that do this so well. Nor is it a botany book aimed at the tree expert. There are excellent books of this kind too. This is a fun book on trees in India’s cities—a book that you can read and relate to, no matter which part of the country you come from or live in. We hope that dipping into this book will satisfy your thirst. At the same time, we wish that it stimulates your interest in knowing more about your city and its trees, and makes you take a stroll or two around your neighbourhood over the weekend to go tree spotting with friends and family.

  At the same time, as is inevitable in any book, and even more so in a book of this nature, we cannot hope to cover it all. We do not try to—this is a sampler, not an exhaustive tome. If we were to discuss all the trees found in all the cities of India, this would be a many volume encyclopedia. Even all the common trees would be difficult to cover, as different trees would be common in different parts of the country. Instead, the book talks of some of the most frequent and characteristic species, to provide a flavour common to multiple cities.

  Trees in cities are much more than just the name tags or species identities they carry. Associated with trees are ideas of games and food, assemblages of insects and monkeys, identities of sacred and secular, heated debates about native and foreign origin, and even mental disorders such as the intriguingly named nature-deficit disorder. We cover a range of these aspects in this book, which alternates between chapters focused on specific species and on themes of this kind. As two ecologists who study the history of nature in cities, this book contains many of our favourite stories—tales of fascinating ecologies, evolutionary battles with pollinators, and historical encounters with kings and commoners. At the same time, it is very much a book written by two women, as you will see, with our favourite games, recipes, recommendations for home-made hair oil, poems and stories thrown in too.

  This book is for those who love their trees and are passionate defenders of their right to exist, and it is for those who like trees but are not really convinced that the city is the right place for them. After all, trees are many things to many people. Whatever your position on trees though, we hope to leave you with food for thought and a deeper appreciation of our emotional and evolutionary connect to these sublime creations that have been around for far longer than us on this earth.

  TWO

  JAMUN: THE TREE

  AT THE CENTRE

  OF THE WORLD

  Laden with purple fruits that stain the sidewalks and our mouths, the jamun tree is a favourite in Indian cities. It is found across most parts of the country and is native to the Indian subcontinent.

  The tree is central to the cosmology of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism—three major religions that took root from this region. Though they differ in details, all three describe the ancient world as being composed of a number of dwipas (island continents). One of the most important of these islands is the Jambudwipa, the island of the jamun trees. In the Vishnu Purana, Jambudwipa, which was the central of seven islands, is described with jambu (jamun) trees that bore fruits as large as elephants. When the ripe massive fruits fell from the trees on to the mountain tops, the juice flowed from them in torrents, forming the Jambunadi. This river of jamun juice flowed through the island and was enjoyed by all its inhabitants.

  The jamun tree is not just characteristic of ancient and mythological India. It appears in the chronicles of many travellers, both Indian and foreign. Ancient Sanskrit medical texts by Charaka, Susruta and Vagbhata describe the use of the jamun as a cure for vomiting in babies, spider bites and an assortment of other diseases and disorders. In the Ramayana, Rama and Sita are believed to have feasted on jamuns during their long years of exile.

  Jamuns played a prominent role in the life of the second Avvaiyar, a revered Tamil poetess-saint. An often-told story of Muruga (Kartikeya) begins with Avvaiyar sitting under a jamun tree, when she sees a young shepherd. Feeling hungry, she asks him for some fruit. He responds by asking ‘Sutta pazham? Sudatha pazham?’ (Do you want the fruit to be hot [roasted] or cool [uncooked]?). Thinking that he was a simple, uneducated boy asking her a silly question, Avvaiyar responded that, of course, she wanted the cool, uncooked fruit. When he shook the branches of the tree, the fruit fell on to the ground below. She picked up the fruit and blew on it to remove the sand. He laughed and asked her, ‘What happened? Why are you blowing on the fruit to cool it? Is it hot?’ Struck by the ease with which he had tricked her, she asked who he was. The shepherd boy revealed himself to be Lord Muruga.

  Popular across Tamil Nadu, the story made its way into a classic Tamil movie of 1953 with the same name, Avvaiyar. This encounter with a child, who was not what he seemed to be, led Avvaiyar to begin writing for children. She composed a number of books with insightful sayings for children. These compositions continue to be popular across Tamil Nadu till date, just as the movie Avvaiyar whose scene under the jamun tree continues to be widely watched with close to 500 million views on YouTube.

  Avvaiyar’s life-changing encounter under the jamun tree is believed to have taken place sometime in the tenth century CE, during the reign of the Cholas. Well before this, Chinese monk Fa-Hsien, who visited India between 399 AD and 414 AD, mentioned the jamun tree, as did Hiuen Tsang who was in the subcontinent sometime between 629 AD and 245 AD. In 1333, Ibn Battuta described the tree, with fruits ‘like the olive’, black and with a single stone, in Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s Delhi.

  Babur, who ruled the areas around Delhi two centuries after Tughlaq, did not think much of the jamun. He was a man of decided opinions, declaring the mango to be the best fruit of Hindustan and speaking highly of the banana. In his memoirs, he acknowledged that the jamun tree was ‘fine looking’, but the fruit, which resembled that of a black grape, ‘has a more acidic taste and is not very good’.

  The bitter taste that Babur disliked so much comes from the high tannin content of the fruit. Tannins, or polyphenol, are found in many health foods ranging from the jamun to red grapes, wine, dark chocolate and black tea. They leave a bitter sensation in the mouth and a puckered-up feeling on the tongue by binding with our saliva and drying out the mouth. It is the tannins that give the jamun its peculiar medicinal properties. Some scientists refer to tannins as a double-edged sword—too much can reduce our ability to absorb iron and vitamins from food and even stimulate some forms of cancer. But in small amounts, tannins are good for us. In fact, they prevent some cancers, protects us from microbial and fungal infections and offer a host of other health benefits. Hence the New Age endorsement of wine, chocolate and jamun as health foods.

  Jamun, if you are in the know, seems to be capable of addressing almost every health disorder known to humankind. And it’s not just the tannins at work. The fruit’s p
urple colour comes from its characteristic pigment, anthocyanins. Antioxidants, anthocyanins are also found in blueberries, cranberries and purple cabbage—all exotic superfoods now being touted as miracle cures against varied diseases such as cancer and dementia. But there’s no need to go looking for imported blueberries when you have the humble jamun closer to home. Sirka (jamun vinegar), made by leaving jamun pulp to ferment with sugar for several weeks followed by straining, is an excellent salad dressing and offers a healthy home-made substitute to balsamic vinegar.

  The fruit, bark, seeds, and even the leaves, are anti-diabetic. In fact, all parts of the tree have medicinal properties. The jamun is used widely in Ayurveda and by traditional healers across the country. The diluted juice can be used as a gargling solution to ward off infections, while the same juice, if applied on the skin and scalp, can be used locally to treat ringworm infections. The pulp can also be used to treat mouth ulcers and gum bleeds. The bark and the inner hard seeds, once dried and powdered, can fight internal disorders like dysentery. The seeds can also be ground into a paste and used in face packs to treat acne and pimples. The astringent juice of the fruit makes for an excellent ingredient in face packs, but only as long as you remember to wash it off well, else you will be left with a purple-tinged face for a few days.

  The jamun is also a tree with high-tech possibilities. Recent research by scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, suggests that the anthocyanins extracted from jamuns can be used to manufacture dye-sensitized solar cells at a lower cost. Another group of scientists at IIT Hyderabad used activated carbon, derived from powdered jamun seeds, to remove fluoride from contaminated water. If this technology can be scaled up and perfected, it can be a low-cost, simple way to supply drinking water to India’s fluorosis-affected villages.