The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is set to launch a project to link heritage trees across Palakkad district with ethnic stories and folk tales of the respective areas. The project named ‘Marangalum Nattile Kathakalum’ will identify, document and propagate the human stories of heritage trees across the district.
The project, being chalked out in association with Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), will be an attempt to invoke the stories in which large local trees of heritage value play an inseparable part in the lives of local communities. “We are planning to reconnect people to their important local trees or ‘nattumaram’,” said INTACH convener Arun Narayanan and senior member J.G. Menon.
The project will be inaugurated through an online event on Tuesday afternoon. District panchayat president K. Binumol, BEML chief manager G. Srinivas, and Assistant Conservator of Forests (Social Forestry) Sibin N.T. will be the guests at the inaugural.
When BEML associates with the initiative as its Swachh Bharat project component, the Government College at Chittur, Mercy College at Palakkad and NSS College at Ottapalam will be the knowledge partners. “We will use the botanical knowledge and expertise of these colleges in identifying and documenting the trees and the tales,” said Mr. Menon.
In the first phase, project volunteers will travel to villages in Chittur, Palakkad and Alathur taluks to find and video-document the most inspiring stories of local heritage trees in each panchayat. “We hope to do it in six weeks. And we are confining ourselves to Chittur, Palakkad and Alathur taluks in the first phase,” said Mr. Narayanan.
Digital platform
The video stories will be uploaded on a digital platform named www.nattumaram.com. “We welcome any individual or local group to create short videos of their local tree stories and upload themselves. Those stories can be widely shared over social media,” said Mr. Narayanan.
In the second phase, a team comprising volunteers and botany experts will visit the trees, clean their premises and tie special ‘nattumaram’ tags. “We will be doing it in partnership with the local residents and their elected representatives,” he said.
INTACH officials said that by identifying local custodians and enabling creative ways of making the space under the trees pleasant and welcoming, the project would be an attempt to bring people back under local trees and revive an interest about them.
“Some trees used to play a significant role in our lives. They may be deeply embedded in our individual and collective consciousness through memories and associations. We used to intuitively remember their shapes, colours and texture, and how their surroundings sounded and felt. But in the faster digital era, we are becoming disconnected with our local trees. We are trying to re-establish this link,” said Mr. Menon and Mr. Narayanan.
