travel: Back of the Blog - Last of Roadside Trees?

Back of the blog. Here we will share tit-bits and snippets on India Travel which may be useful for a traveller in India. It may be some new information about the place, a new cuisine one can explore, a bit of history, a funny anecdote or a good travel book. Anything connected to Travel in India.

The major roads and highways in India were always flanked by huge roadside trees. Thanks to benevolence of our Kings from time immemorial, trees have been part of travel folklore. When motorcars were not the preferred mode of transport and people used to walk from one place to another or may be on a cart, these trees not only provided shade to travelers but also fodder for the animals. The great Emperor Ashoka may be the first one who regularised planting of these trees methodically. In one of the edicts he talks about how important are these. You can read that in this wiki link

Ashokan Edict on Roadside facilities

The Kings and Queens of Karnataka and South India were not far behind. Tipu Sultan and later Wodeyars took lot of interest in planting and nurturing these road side tress. Trees planted by them had become gigantic and huge providing a green canopy over our roads..

Unfortunately, in the name of development and road widening, these trees have been felled. All highways - Bangalore - Mysore, Bangalore - Pune and others in Karnataka once upon a time were lined with beautiful trees. Same goes with roads in other parts of the country as well. The road widening has made them barren and lifeless.

However, there are some roads still surviving. Not sure for how long.

When we were driving to Wayanad/Ooty from Bangalore, we came across a small stretch between Chamarajanagar and Gundlupet which are lined by beautiful Banyan trees with their aerial roots. The canopy of the trees look lovely and it was something to cherish.

This is how it looks.