In Maharashtra, the festival of ‘Pola’ is celebrated with great fervour. It is a day to worship the bullocks for their contribution to agriculture. As per tradition, on this day, the entrances of all the houses are adorned with branches of the ‘Palash’ tree (flame of the forest). Invariably, these come from the commons!

Reference picture for the above post

Similarly, seeds that are a little charred due to fire have greater chances of germination than others. In the picture are seeds of teak tree (Sagwan)- some half charred and some are not.

As seen in the image, trees on the left side of the road have leaves, while those on the right are leafless. The left side was affected by controlled fire, which helped in the regeneration.

P.S: This information was shared by Dr. Satish Sharma, who is an expert biologist and a retired forest officer. The picture is from the dry deciduous…Read More

This is very insightful. The general perspective around sacred groves is that the biophysical components like certain trees are protected for their sanctity. Their conversion to ‘elitist temple spaces’ is indeed a new phenomenon.

Beautiful! The trees around the pond are so huge!!!
How does the community manage the pond? Are there any rules/norms for its governance?

Very inspiring! Looking forward to other stories from the collection.

This is very interesting. Such spaces are used for recreation and informal interactions as you mentioned, even in villages. This is a picture of a peepul tree shrine in a village in Andhra Pradesh. They may not be called Ashwath Kattes in AP, nevertheless, the use of such spaces remain the same across.