A signature campaign is going on to save a massive tamarind tree in a south Kolkata neighbourhood, something that residents and activists fear might be brought down if the administration does not specifically mark it as protected.
The tree is important not just because it is a living landmark, serving as a home to numerous varieties of birds, but also because it was planted by freedom fighter Parul Mukherjee about 70 years ago. She was a revolutionary who in 1935, when she was only 20, was convicted in the Titagarh conspiracy case and spent four years in jail. After Independence and Partition, she moved to Calcutta to a refugee settlement that was subsequently named Vidyasagar Colony, where she died in 1990.
Only recently a documentary made on the tree, Friends of Jilipibala, was selected for world premiere in the National Competition on Documentary category at the Kolkata International Film Festival. “I have been documenting this tamarind tree for 12 years and have witnessed the amazing biodiversity it supports. This tree is currently on public land, but despite our petitions and letters to all kinds of government officials for more than a year, there is still no indication of its protected status. We are urging the Kolkata Municipal Corporation once again to save this icon of urban biodiversity,” filmmaker Debalina Majumder, who lives in the neighbourhood and who made the 30-minute documentary, told The Hindu.
