A seed was planted last year from which sprouted Bengaluru’s first urban tree festival: Neralu, which means shade in Kannada. This year, in its second edition, Neralu tree festival has bloomed into immense possibilities, bringing together ecologists, naturalists, artists, photographers and others from various walks of life to celebrate trees.
Neralu tree festival is a completely volunteer-driven initiative and has been crowd funded. The festival’s increasing popularity makes it an even bigger event this year.
Anush Shetty, a software engineer and a volunteer, says the festival is multi-disciplinary. “We thought something like this must be shared with a much larger group of people, from naturalists to people who worked with trees as artists. Celebrate is a metaphor for having a dialogue about issues concerning trees and rekindling our connection with trees.”
The festival begins on February 7 at Doddamavalli Katte near Lalbagh. Poornima Kannan, an amateur naturalist and a volunteer, speaks about this activity. “Local communities have been coming together for years to worship the peepal, neem and banni trees there. These trees are 150-years old. Kiran Keswani will be conducting the Katte Parichaya session. She is an architect. She started studying about ashwath katte history at Neralu, last year. In November, last year, she presented a paper, ‘The Practice of Tree worship and the Territorial Production of Urban space in an Indian neighbourhood’ at the Asia Research Institute, NUS, Singapore.”
National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) will be hosting workshops, talks, audio walks, performances and art installations on February 7 and 8. Eminent personalities including Malavika Sarukkai, Mala Kumar, Nagesh Hegde, Suresh Moona, Dr. T.V Ramachandra and Vijay Thiruvady have confirmed their participation. Anush says cultural spaces like NGMA are important for it holds rich natural heritage within its grounds.
On the morning of February 8, tree walks have been organised, in which the public will be introduced to trees, through narratives of ecological and cultural significance. There will also be a unique photo walk, where participants will record tree stories in different localities in Bangalore. A. Ajit, a software professional, who pursues naturalist history, will be one of the co-ordinators of the tree walk.
“Last year, the tree walk was held only in Cubbon Park. This year, we are going to spread it across the city for people to engage with trees around their neighbourhood. I will be covering the biodiversity aspect of trees.”
On February 8, an event will take place at M.N. Krishna Rao Park, Basavanagudi. And on February 14, the festival will be held at Bal Bhavan, Cubbon Park, where a variety of art activities and cultural performances have been planned.
Sangeetha Kadur, artist, wildlife illustrator and a volunteer at Neralu, speaks of the online participation project, Neralu School Project.
“The objective was to get as many schools to participate. We gave a complete project that combined science and art activities, such as creating scrapbooks, measuring a tree, valuing a tree. Some scrapbooks and a beautiful installation of a tree will be displayed at NGMA.”
Photographer and wildlife enthusiast Radha Rangarajan, the co-ordinator for the Neralu Photo Project, says she got an overwhelming response from participants. “We gave an open call through websites and newspapers and we had three themes: One was Neralu itself, about perspectives on shade. The second was trees in urban spaces. And textures in Nature in relation to trees, it could be the bark of the tree or a leaf. We chose 40 images, which will be displayed at NGMA and Bal Bhavan, on February 14. The centre piece is an image by Kalyan Varma of a banyan tree, which is over 100-years old, which is within the premises of NGMA. Our objective is to show that trees are also interesting subjects that can be photographed.”
The best part of Neralu, says Sangeetha, is that it has brought people from different walks of life together in one platform. “We are trying to reach out to as many people as possible.”
The fact that Neralu has received such an overwhelming response, points to what the people really want for the city, despite it being tagged the IT city. “Before Bengaluru was called an IT city, it was known as a Garden City. Some of the sensitivity towards trees and environment has gone. Through Neralu, we want to sensitise people to trees.” A festival of this kind is unique to Bengaluru. “We associate Bengaluru with its natural heritage. That connection really works,” says Anush.
Walks and workshops require prior registration, register online at http://neralu.in/register.
