To Grovel.....

One afternoon a month ago, I fetched up at an old haunt in search of a gorgeous flower. I was in the splendid company of the indefatigable Green Saviour team of Sameer Majli and Datta, whose mission to green the landscape around Belgaum is inspirational, no less.

The Western Ghats around Sindhudurg is at its finest at this time of March - though the weather can be warm at mid-day – with a rich canopy of flowering trees, a hint of summer fragrance and the extraordinary warmth of its people. We soaked all of that in, of course, and the fetching hospitality of my old friend, the knowledgeable Praveen Desai who, along with his charming friendly family, runs Vanoshi Forest Home Stay. In the evening and next morning, he escorted us to the numerous ‘Devarai’s or sacred groves in the region, each belonging to a village and its temple. The Western Ghats have a rich, tradition of sacred forests: revered tiny patches with beautiful large trees, many of them belonging to species that are now rare and endangered. 

We went grove-hopping (now, there’s one new term in English I can get credit for) with curiosity and awe and stared at the giants in front of us: Holigarna arnottiana, Hydnocarpus pentandra, Syzigium stocksii. 

As you can see, the folks who named these trees liked everything big. It’s genetic.

And, on the evening of the second day after Sameer and Datta had left, Praveen and I set out on my search: to Perme village to see a magnificent grove of Saraca indica or Ashoka, The One Without Sorrow, under the shade of one of which, it is said, Lord Buddha was born. 

A single creeper as thick as a tree and possibly two hundred
years old or more covered much of the grove, snaking its way up and over the giants and the Ashoka was in modest flower, each floret an evolutionary marvel. A few Hydnocarpus trees stood together, their bloom resembling golf balls dropped into a muddy pond by an amateur golfer (the resemblance, of course, ends there). 

Silence reigned. In the warmth of an evening sun, as we strolled on a rich carpet of fallen leaves, it seemed that the grove was testimony to what these forests must once have been.
…and to what they could be if we restored our habitat. 
Protect our forests.
Nothing else really matters.