Garden

Around 2006–07, the trees which made Bengaluru the “Garden City” absconded overnight. The city had to suffer through various projects like road widening and metro construction, all of which needed century-old trees to be torn down. A 33-year-old software engineer, hailing from the north but unconditionally in love with the green glory of the south where he worked as an IT professional, answered the wake-up call of nature that most others turned a blind eye to. He made the decision to save Bengaluru’s greenery when he witnessed the brutal mass-felling of trees day after day. He simply could not wrap his head around what version of development this city was edging towards.

“Bangalore was heaven till 2005; there was no summer. It would rain here when the entire country used to burn in summer. But that glory started waning eight years ago. Every day, the trees I would pass and adore on my long commute to work were being brought down.” Wondering what hellish destiny awaited his beloved city if this kept up, he started visiting BBMP offices on weekends with some pressing questions surrounding these tree killings. “They never expected this from a guy who came from north India and was only working in Bangalore. Finally, I decided that I have to plant more and more trees to make sure Bangalore retains its green cover and my lovely Garden City remains a garden and not a concrete jungle,” says Kapil Gupta.

Keeping his day job as a software engineer, he decided to dedicate the entire remainder of his time to the initiative he coined, conceptualised, and christened ‘SayTrees.’ Aware of the fact that trees planted on the sides of the roads would always be in danger as roads widened, he started looking for places where development projects would not disturb the saplings — like any empty, unused land masses in the city, lakes, parks, etc.
A simple means to an all-powerful end, Kapil, a one-man army defending the green cover of a city identified by it, reduced the problem to bare bones, and worked out a super-rudimentary plan of action.

While laying the groundwork, he also noticed that corporates wanted to help, but lacked the resources to construct a roadmap and chart a trajectory. For such organisations, Kapil took it upon himself to lay the complete blueprint, get the resources and materials in order, set up the project and finally, hand the execution over to the corporate bodies on D-day, who would then turn it into a CSR activity that would engage all their employees.