Remembering ancestors through plantation

A banyan tree is a landmark in village Sarna Kheri situated on the outskirts of Safidon town of Jind district in Haryana. It is called Dada Paalewala Bud (Grandpa Paale's Banyan), so named after an  elder Ram Gopal Sharma who planted it over 30 years ago. Sharma is no more but the banyan tree perpetuates his memory and message of tree plantation.Sharma's sons remember him in a unique manner during the Pitripaksh, the  period when the Hindus remember their ancestors on the corresponding date of their death during the first fortnight of the Ashwin month of the Hindu calendar.
Tejbir Sharma his youngest son who is an employee of the Haryana Agricultural University at Hisar, donated Rs. 500 to the neighborhood park to help plant a suitable tree."We held pooja at home to remember my father. I narrated anecdotes about my father to my children who feel proud of their grandfather for his passion for tree planting", says Tejbir Sharma.Three sons of late Haridev Goyal have planted a Kadam tree in memory of their father who succumbed to Corona pandemic some months ago. Family of another Corona victim Master Bhagchand also planted a sapling in the Tikona Park in his memory.
The idea of donation for upkeeping of the park has picked up in the Agarsen Colony Tikona Park area. Vinay Kumar donated Rs 500 to mark the birthday of his son. Vinod Garg donated Rs 1100 to mark the  birthday of his  two sons.This tradition has picked up to the extent that the Park Development Committee now has a corpus of about Ra. 50,000 to meet expenses on some events of community benefit.Narendra Gupta donated three times Rs. 500 each to mark the new home he has built, the job his son got in a bank and also to mark the marriage of his son, all within a year. 
"People from diverse backgrounds come to settle in new colonies of a city. Celebrations like these create a social bond among the residents who also narrate stories of their lives and also of their ancestors and their old villages and towns", says Master Zile Singh Saini, the President of the Tikona Park Development Committee of Agarsen Colony in Hisar city.

(The writer is a freelance journalist based at Hisar.Mob. 9466647037)