The famous Maiti Movement has survived on the unconditional love a girl has for her paternal home and the latter’s unwavering affection for the daughter who is now married and has moved away

Down the narrow by-lanes of Nathuwala in Dehradun lives 65-year-old retired biology lecturer Kalyan Singh Rawat. He invites me to his home and over a cup of piping hot tea with some biscuits, we get talking. Kalyan ji, as he is fondly called by everyone around him, is a simple man with humble beginnings. He begins with his childhood, which was spent in the hills of Garhwal and then, like most of the youth in the interiors do to-date, migrated to the plains of India in search of a better and brighter future.

He joined a school as a biology lecturer in Nathuwala, got married, had children and decided to make Dehradun his home. Today his sons, the older one a medical student in Chandigarh and the younger one working with the Uttarakhand Space Application Centre, join their father from time to time in his ventures.

Reminiscing about the days of the past, Kalyan ji adds how, over the years, his annual pilgrimage to his home in the hills left him troubled. The sight of the depleting green cover of the mountains he once grew up in pained him. The rampage of land mafias cutting down innumerable trees in the name of development left irreparable scars on the once lush green landscape. The man set about thinking of how he, as an individual, could involve the village community at large in preserving and protecting their environment, for he was well aware that alone he stood little chance of making any positive impact.

In 1995, on a visit to Gwaldam, a small town in Kumaon, for his niece’s wedding, Kalyan ji came up with a unique idea of making the bride’s parting from her paternal home more special. After the wedding celebrations were over and the time for his niece to leave her parental home came, he made his niece plant a tender sapling in her mait (paternal home), as a symbol of her love for her parents and theirs for her.

His logic was simple, “When a bride leaves her parent’s home for her in-laws’ home and plants a sapling, the bride’s mother is sure to look after this parting gift from her daughter and the family will nurture and protect the tree from any harm and by doing, so they will bring back greenery.”

This symbolic ritual spread like forest fire. More so amongst the women folk, who found an immediate emotional connect to the idea, and thus, the seed of the Maiti Movement was sown. The word maiti is derived from a Garhwali/ Kumaoni word, which means a bride’s paternal home. On the day of her vidai (when the married girl leaves her paternal home for her in-laws’ home), the bride plants a sapling in her mait or her mother’s yard, as a symbol of her love for her parents. The bride’s parents, in turn, nurture and look after the sapling as if it were their own daughter and keep it from harm’s way.

This innovative afforestation drive is a women-centric concept. Today, it has touched a chord not only in its birth state of Uttarakhand, but crossed over state borders onto Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and taken wings in foreign shores of Nepal, Dubai, Indonesia and Canada as well. As Kalyan ji tell me, “Many foreigners read about this movement and they feel privileged when I ask them to be a part of this noble deed.”

The Maiti ceremony also finds a prominent place on wedding invites as well. Many wedding invites print the date and time of the Maiti ritual, making this unique green revolution an inherent part of the wedding festivities, especially in the interiors. Sarita Rawat, a newly-wed bride told me about her Maiti moment and her thoughts match those of all the women who have been a part of it: ‘In the years to come, if 10 trees are planted in 10 weddings, the village will slowly become green, there will be water sources, pure air and fruit-bearing trees, which in turn will make our village prosperous. I too will ensure that I do my bit to keep this tradition alive in my in-laws household.”

The emotional connect of a mother to a tender sapling and nurturing it as one of her own daughters has made a major impact in returning the green cover to the once-barren hillsides of Uttarakhand. Based purely on emotions, the Maiti tradition today has grown by leaps and bounds without any monetary aid or help from any individual or the state government at large. Sustained by pure love and passion, the movement has planted and nurtured close to two lakh trees all over the hill state alone.

In Uttarakhand, a daughter’s love for her mother’s home has become synonymous with preserving and protecting the ever dwindling green cover. What started as a one-man mission to save the depleting green cover of his beloved hills, has, in turn, become a mass movement with positive results for all to see.

As I take leave from Kalyan ji’s home I am smitten by his passion and determination for the cause. While for many of us, retirement is a sure-shot sign of hanging up our boots and taking it easy, for this biology lecturer it only means, “To have all the time in the world to pursue Maiti and its mission. I don’t have to apply for leaves from the education department or wait for summer or winter vacations to set about my task of planting trees. Nothing can keep me away from my vision of a greener Uttarakhand.”

As I leave, I remember Robert Frost’s famous lines, “But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”