Bengaluru hardly evokes the epithet Garden City these days but some Bengaluru residents are opening their wallets to a festival that celebrates the city's trees. Neralu, a festival named for the Kannada word meaning "shade" and the only urban tree festival of its kind, has raised more than Rs 1.84 lakhs through crowd-funding this year. That’s about two-and-a-half times Neralu’s budget in 2014, the first year of the festival.
“Most of the funding came from contributors, who after the success of last year, have doubled their funding this year,” said Neralu organizer Radha Rangarajan. The National Gallery of Modern Art and MN Krishna Rao Park have offered their spaces for Neralu events, which will be held in the second week of February.
The festival’s schedule is packed with events like tree walks, art exhibitions, talks on the city’s heritage and future, music and drama performances. “The core philosophy of Neralu is to reconnect people with nature,” said Rangarajan. “When walking on the streets they are thinking about the road, speed breakers, traffic. We want to encourage people to stop and look at a tree or go to a talk on climate change, to ask a child to learn how to draw trees, so they observe trees more and understand them.”
Like last year a prominent feature of the festival will be an exhibition of photographs, also crowd-sourced. Taking full advantage of the fact that the final day of the final day of the festival will be held on Valentine’s Day, Neralu has started a campaign asking people to send in pictures of themselves hugging trees. Take a look at some of the photo contributions.
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“Most of the funding came from contributors, who after the success of last year, have doubled their funding this year,” said Neralu organizer Radha Rangarajan. The National Gallery of Modern Art and MN Krishna Rao Park have offered their spaces for Neralu events, which will be held in the second week of February.
The festival’s schedule is packed with events like tree walks, art exhibitions, talks on the city’s heritage and future, music and drama performances. “The core philosophy of Neralu is to reconnect people with nature,” said Rangarajan. “When walking on the streets they are thinking about the road, speed breakers, traffic. We want to encourage people to stop and look at a tree or go to a talk on climate change, to ask a child to learn how to draw trees, so they observe trees more and understand them.”
Like last year a prominent feature of the festival will be an exhibition of photographs, also crowd-sourced. Taking full advantage of the fact that the final day of the final day of the festival will be held on Valentine’s Day, Neralu has started a campaign asking people to send in pictures of themselves hugging trees. Take a look at some of the photo contributions.
A frangipani tree as a witness to the faith of many who tie coconuts to it in the hope of getting their wished fulfilled.
Photo: Arun Bhat
Playing cricket, reading books, having lunch, chitchat/quarrels with friends - all under the shades of trees on school premises.Photo: Jessu
In Chamarajanagar, a lovely, tree-lined road with several peepal and other ficus trees on either side. But only this one had a katte [stone bench] built around it.
Photo: Pavithra Sankaran
Trees line the road by the metro line at MG Road .
Photo: Suchi Govindarajan
Photo: K Rajkumar
One of many posers for Neralu's hug-a-tree campaign
Photo: Suchi Govindarajan