IFFI and sad banyan tree stories of Goa

More important than World Environment Day (WED) is the ritual associated with Vatt Poornima which was celebrated on June 21, the full moon day this year.

Like Ganesh Visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi that resembles Narak Chaturdashi or Gatari Amavasya accompanied by firecrackers, music and dancing in the streets, Vatt Poornima and Tulsi Vivah have lost their traditional meaning and essence in modern times.

If we are okay with planting a new tulsi seedling in the vrindavan each year, we are equally comfortable cutting the very banyan trees we worship.

One has been moved from St Inez to the ground, where the existing one in the middle of the road may also be critical and get surgically removed after a successful operation in Porvorim.

Banyan trees khatre mein hai in Goa, even as one may think it is vatt nonsense!

SURVIVORS: Rain trees along Panjim's Dayanand Bandodkar Road survived IFFI 2004.

This year, many married women prayed at vhoddakoddem (the Konkani word meaning ‘near the banyan tree’) in Porvorim and tied a thread around the huge tree, at the T-junction opposite the First Cry store, to pray for the long life of their respective husbands so that they may not have to live as widows.

The threads are still on the tree, but the tree may not remain at vhoddakoddem. It will be ‘translocated’ away from the public gaze to die like an old parent in a home for the aged. No one will hear its last cry.

It assuages our conscience or the vestigial strands of it that exist like an appendix with no functional role in the human body.

The tradition of fasting, praying and tying a thread around a banyan tree continues during every Voddachi Punov and, hence, it is ensured to this day that every village and town has a banyan tree.

According to Hindu , the date for King Satyavan’s demise had been fixed, but his wife Satyavati’s fasting and prayers won over even Yamraj. Satyavan’s life was revalidated for a further period.

The tradition of fasting, praying and tying a thread around a banyan tree continues during every Voddachi Punov and, hence, it is ensured to this day that every village and town has a banyan tree.

Will someone fast for the banyan tree’s life in ? Will the government of Goa be as gracious to the citizens of Goa as Yamraj was to Satyavati?

This is a test case that will determine the future of banyan trees along the roadsides in Goa.

In 2004, the people of Goa joined the people of Panjim to save the rain trees along the Dayanand Bandodkar Road that were to be cut for the first IFFI in Goa.

The banyan trees and other ficus trees were collateral beneficiaries of the festive and musical protest that brought together Dr Claude Alvares, Dr Nandkumar Kamat, Patricia Pinto, Heta Pandit, , the Cotta brothers brass band and many others of all ages, including school students.

A solution was found by the then MLA of Panjim, who was also the chief minister at the time. The rain trees, Albizia saman, stand tall to this day in spite of the Chief Conservator of Forests, , certifying them as a fit case for euthanasia.

They provide welcome shade and beauty to the promenade that still hosts the IFFI.

My father would often say, “While there is life, there is hope” while his sister would remind us saying, “Jiv aslear bhik magon jiyet” in Konkani language. It is time to protect life. Development is not everything.