A sharp turn at the Mettugadda crossroad of Mahabubnagar town, nearly 100 kilometres from Hyderabad, leads to a hilly region, speckled on both sides with quaint hamlets such as Thimmasani Pally and Doddalonipally — names which do not figure on Google Maps. A couple of twists and turns later on the roughly 3-km ghat road lies Pillalamarri, which means a children’s banyan in Telugu.
An iron grill fencing supported by concrete pillars runs around the tree complex, with an iron gate under lock and key. Before reaching the tree, a manually operated boom barrier allows only visitors with a ₹50-ticket into the complex, which also houses an ancient temple dismantled from the Srisailam dam submergence area and reconstructed here, an archaeology museum, a deer park, and a mini zoo.
It’s easy to ‘miss the tree for the woods’ here. It takes some time to realise that the thick canopy locked in by the Telangana Forest Department on the four-acre site is a single banyan tree with scores of branches and aerial roots. From a wrought iron elevated walkway outside the gate, visitors can view the tree’s gnarled, twisted branches extending horizontally 40-50 metres from the trunk.
Nobody is allowed inside. For anyone fortunate enough to gain entry, it’s a joy to watch the diverse fauna that made the tree their habitat. One may get the sight of an occasional paradise flycatcher flitting from one branch to the other, or hear the alarm call of a parakeet nesting in the tree’s hollow, watch hundreds of butterflies drift about as if in some animated world, or regard an army of worker ants forming a long line on a branch. The banyan is a mini forest in itself.
The paved pathway meandering around the tree leads to the dargah of two Sufi saints, Syed Shah Jamal Hussaini Chishti and Syed Shah Kamal Hussaini Chishti, as the sign board in Urdu and Telugu indicates. The shrine is 300 years old, yet younger than the banyan, under the shade of which the saints were buried. The tree is also called peerla marri (banyan with the saints) in Telugu, after the shrine. A seasonal stream flowing through the compound ends in a water body outside, keeping the groundwater recharged to support the banyan and the varied crops planted on the rocky terrain.
“The tree was much bigger than what is left of it now. As children, we were taken there for picnics, and it was a sight to behold. Later, the location fell into decay and became a hub of drunkards and drug addicts,” says Rama Devi, a 51-year-old homemaker from Mahabubnagar.
Back from the dead
A comparison of the satellite images from 2012 and 2023 shows that the tree spread has shrunk to a great extent on the south-western side. Highly placed officials claimed that part of the five-acre land under the banyan was allocated for a private organisation by the Tourism Department, which curtailed its spread in that direction.
It was noticed in 2018 that the tree started dying a slow and painful death, which spurred the district and forest administrations into action with the aim to protect and revive the green giant. Thanks to remedial action, the banyan is now on the path to recovery.
“A big branch crumbled in 2018, after which we discovered termite infestation and closed it down for tourists. The tree was under the control of the Forest Department, but got transferred to the Tourism Department about 25 years ago,” said commissioner of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Ronald Rose, who, during his stint as Mahabubnagar district collector until three years ago, initiated and oversaw the efforts to revive the dying tree. He had the banyan transferred back to the Forest Department and summoned expert teams to evaluate its health and suggest remedies.
Retired IFS officer and botanist Manoranjan Bhanja was invited to evaluate the situation, and he found extreme damage to the architecture of the tree. Branches lay decomposed because of termites and fungus. Major prop roots were in a leaning position, displaying vulnerability to getting uprooted in case of strong gales. Serpentine growth of stems on the ground were found to be due to their regular pruning and visitors swinging from the prop roots.
“I suggested injuring the cambium (which produces new wood and new bark) a little, to initiate growth of prop roots, and applying fungicide at the location. I also prescribed a rooting powder to dust it with, and tying the prop root initials in self deteriorating wax cloth,” Bhanja says. He also suggested RCC pillars be constructed underneath the labyrinthine branches to support them and prevent them from breaking.
Termite and insect attacks posed a bigger problem. “Treatment of the roots with insecticide solution did not help. With suggestions from Forest officials, we then pumped the solution through drip wherever the infestation was found,” Rose recalls. News of the banyan on drip caught wide attention about six years ago.
Another innovative solution for faster growth of prop roots came from the tree conservation wing of Shri Ramachandra Mission, which suggested training the prop roots through PVC pipes filled with moss, cocopeat, and red soil, which were to be kept moist by enclosing them in gunny bags, and spraying with the insecticide solution.
“We divided the whole tree area into sectors, counted the shoots and kept a register to record the daily developments. All these efforts paid off and within a year, the hollow tree began to show signs of revival,” Rose says.
K. Krishna, a resident of Doddalonipally, who looks after the tree’s upkeep, says the prop roots now take only three to four months to hit the ground and penetrate. A total 119 prop roots can be seen enclosed in PVC pipes now. Once the root settles, the pipes either break or are removed. “The spraying, which was initially done every day, has now been reduced to once in 15 days,” Krishna says.
Maintenance and moolah
The tree is now under the care of District Forest Officer S.Satyanarayana. Funding, however, has remained a problem all through. An action plan prepared by the Forest Department put the budgetary requirement at around ₹2 crore for five years, which includes development and beautification works.
With the tree ready for public access now but needing protection from vandals, a see-through wall is proposed along the pathways. A selfie point, woody creepers all along the compound wall, 24-hour security, an information kiosk, and renovation and maintenance of existing water pipelines are all on the cards.
Member of Parliament J. Santosh Kumar, more than a year ago, pledged ₹2 crore from his MPLAD funds, for conservation of the tree. Proposals have been sent seeking the first tranche of ₹50 lakh, but so far, the funds have not been released.
“We cannot use funds from CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority), as the tree is not in forest lands. We are looking for adoption by a corporate entity as part of their social responsibility initiative. In return, we can allow display boards advertising their contribution,” Satyanarayana says. A detailed project report for adoption has been prepared and sent for approval.
Contenders for ‘oldest’ tag
Over seven months ago, scientists found a 500-year-old banyan tree near Bulandshahr of Uttar Pradesh which they declared as the oldest of its species. It has replaced the 350-year-old banyan at the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden in Howrah, West Bengal, which had earlier been promoted as the oldest in the world.
A team of scientists from the Prayagraj Centre of the Botanical Survey of India, Babes-Bolyai University in Romania, and a lab from Johannesburg in South Africa, discovered the tree during a floristic survey in the Upper Ganga Ramsar Site. Its canopy spread over 4069 square metres — roughly a little over an acre — which gave it the distinction of the 10th largest banyan tree in the world.
The research paper titled ‘Radiocarbon analysis of the Indian banyan (Ficus benghalensis L.) at Narora’ and published in Current Science magazine, says the largest Ficus benghalensis in terms of net covered area is Thimmamma Marrimanu in Andhra Pradesh, with a coverage of 19,107 square metres, followed by the Kabir Vad banyan in Gujarat, spread over 17,520 square metres and the Giant Banyan tree at Majhi, Uttar Pradesh, across 16,770 square metres.
As described in the detailed project report prepared by the Telangana Forest Department for adoption, the Pillalamarri covers 3.95 acres, and measures 123.5 metres from east to west and 124.5 metres from north to south, with a crown periphery (canopy) of about 385 metres. Based on the measurements, the canopy spread of the tree, as per conservative estimates, should be around 12,000 square metres, placing it among the 10 largest banyans in the world.
The study of the Narora banyan notes, “Indian banyans can potentially reach advanced ages, but dendrochronological studies are problematic, especially since the tree can survive long after the mother stem has disappeared.” Radio-carbon dating evaluates the carbon-14 content to determine age, while dendrochronology is tree ring dating. Neither has been done on the Pillalamarri banyan.
“Only oral records exist of the tree’s age, which is estimated to be around 700-800 years. We tried to get the scientific analysis, but could not find the main trunk. All we have now is an approximation, and not a scientific estimate,” points out Rose.
Challenge of preservation
“It is a shame that for such a long time, we have failed to conserve the iconic tree which could have been the largest in the world if not for decades of neglect. The canopy is all scattered now owing to the decay in the connecting branches, resulting in shrunken spread,” says P. Uday Krishna, founder of Hyderabad-based environmental non-profit organisation Vata Foundation. Uday Krishna is currently scouring for donors for the tree.
The eco-tourism potential of the tree has not been fully exploited, as most tourists are either from Mahabubnagar town or from villages nearby. “The department should publicise the tree as a weekend destination for tourists from Hyderabad so that they learn and cherish its heritage and grandeur. Funding required is meagre when compared with what we are going to leave for the posterity,” he says.
Bhanja feels the tree, the spread of which is curtailed due to private lands around, should be allowed to grow on all sides. “More land needs to be acquired from adjacent plots because the tree needs to spread out following revival efforts,” he adds.
