This could be a scene from any suburb. But there is something special about this street in Sarawathipuram, Mysore, for Friends of Roadside Trees. The row of trees you see on the right were planted a decade back by Mr Gurukar, a tree-lover credited with planting nearly 1,000 trees in the city.
He is an ordinary person with a mission extraordinary. A retired govt. official K R Gurukar has passion for planting saplings on city sidewalks. He has been doing it on a daily basis for the last decade or more. He plants honge, a species suited to Mysore. Goats and stray cows don't fancy honge leaves, he says.
Tree-lover Gurukar goes about the town every morning, looking for vacant space on roadside where he can plant a sapling. He carries the planting kit,and a sapling , on his bike. He works on his own, and has planted, in the last 10 years, over a thousand saplings in Mysore. 