For years of her life, Devaki Amma spent time in the paddy fields of Mutukulam, a coastal village in the Alappuzha district of Kerala. Agriculture was an integral part of her existence, a work she knew since childhood and continued to do with her husband, Gopalakrishnan Pillai, a retired school principal.
However, at the age of 46, a car accident suddenly interrupted this familiar rhythm. The injury severely limited her mobility, and doctors advised her to avoid physical exertion for almost three years. For someone accustomed to working outdoors from dawn, the long period of forced rest seemed unbearable, and the fields she had cultivated for decades became inaccessible.
Life changed overnight. Restricted mainly to her home space, Devaki Amma began planting individual saplings in a sandy patch near her house, which was previously only used for post-harvest activities. This gave her something to do while recovering her health. She planted one, then another, and then another. Initially, there were no plans to create a forest; it was simply a way to pass the days without doing her usual work.
This small, repetitive act did not stop after her recovery. Friends and relatives brought seeds and cuttings during visits, and her husband and children joined the effort. Her daughter, Tankamani, who later headed the department of environmental engineering at Tiruvannanthapuram College, watched this quiet, constant labor.
What started as a way to distract herself from boredom gradually turned into a shared family endeavor, and then became Devaki Amma's life mission.
Over more than four decades, Devaki Amma's saplings spread across nearly five acres of coastal sandy soil, a plot she named Tapovanam. She worked without formal training, relying on careful observation of the soil and local climate. The use of mulching, organic manure from domestic livestock, and careful preservation of fallen leaves gradually improved the land, which was never supposed to support a forest.
As the monsoon patterns in Kerala changed over the decades, with longer dry spells alternating with intense downpours, Devaki Amma adjusted her methods instead of abandoning them. Her family periodically adapted mulching techniques to prevent waterlogging and protect root systems, using solutions based solely on years of experimentation and observation, rather than textbooks.
Two ponds within Tapovanam never dry up. They help replenish groundwater, assist in preventing seawater intrusion into the coastal soil, and sustain aquatic life year-round. The forest also includes an Indian banyan tree, estimated to be about 200 years old, which is significantly older than Tapovanam itself, which now exists in an ecosystem that grew around it.
Alappuzha is the only district in Kerala that lacks natural forest cover, making Tapovanam particularly remarkable. Today, the forest comprises over 3000 registered trees, plants, shrubs, and vines, including rare and medicinal species that are becoming increasingly difficult to find elsewhere in the state. It serves as a sanctuary for peacocks, owls, emerald doves, and migratory birds, as well as butterflies and other small wildlife, functioning as a repository of Kerala's endangered native plant species due to habitat loss.
Everything is maintained organically, without the use of chemical fertilizers, using methods developed by Devaki Amma through decades of trial and error. She achieved all of this without institutional funding or a team of specialists, working for most of these four decades with little public recognition. Now, her methods are attracting the attention of a new generation of gardeners, including Krishnakumar S, who helped create over 40 dense urban forests to cool Indian cities.
Devaki Amma, now 91 years old, is widely known in Kerala as 'Vanammattassi', or grandmother of forests. Her work attracted national attention long before this year, including the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award in 2003 and the Nari Shakti Award in 2018, as well as mention by former President Ram Nath Kovind in his Republic Day address. This year, she received the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, in the category of Unsung Heroes, becoming the only recipient from Kerala.
Tapovanam is visited by students, researchers, and nature lovers studying biodiversity conservation in situ, and Devaki Amma encourages schools, colleges, and households across the state to grow local and medicinal plants, often providing seeds and saplings herself. Her daughter, Tankamani, now cares for her full-time, while the rest of the family continues to help maintain the forest. Devaki Amma still tends to her plants daily, urging everyone she meets to plant at least one tree. Her four decades of quiet, repetitive labor stand as proof of what patience, family support, and a single sapling can achieve.
For many people passing by the temple in Sangagiri, the banyan tree was just another tree. However, for N. Palanisamy, next to which it grew, this tree became a part of his life, from childhood games under its canopy to daily passage past it as an adult. In 2013, this tree was felled to expand the temple grounds.
Palanisamy, who is now 55 and is known locally as the 'tree driver' of Sangagiri, spoke about how deeply this loss affected him. In the same year, ecologist Dr. G. Nammalvar passed away, whose works and radio broadcasts on harmonious coexistence with nature long shaped Palanisamy's worldview.
Despite having only completed up to the 10th grade, Nammalvar's ideas remained with him even after a single meeting. The loss of the tree and the inspiration who shaped his view of nature prompted him to act within a few months. In the same year, he began planting saplings on the grounds of his old school.
To fund this initiative, Palanisamy used part of his daily income, which amounted to about 250 rupees, earned from driving an auto-rickshaw. He could have spent this money on family needs, but instead directed it towards seeds and saplings for a cause that brought him no return.
Palanisamy quickly realized that the planting process itself was only half the battle. Protective cages, bamboo supports, nets, and regular watering determined whether the young tree would survive attacks from livestock, bad weather, or neglect. A significant portion of his funds went towards this unseen maintenance work, rather than the saplings themselves. His wife, Gomathi, supported him in those early years, and he considers her encouragement vital for sustaining his efforts.
This instinct, that survival is more important than the act of planting, resonates with the challenges faced by groups distributing free saplings across India, such as an auto-rickshaw driver from Kolhapur who distributed over 8,000 saplings.
Three years later, Palanisamy's persistence attracted the attention of the Sangagiri Truck Owners Association. When they offered help, he asked not for money, but for protective cages, which ensured a constant supply of cages and free water tankers for large-scale watering.
In 2016, friends and nature lovers who followed his work on Facebook and WhatsApp formed the Pasumai Sangagiri volunteer group, which has since grown to 25 active members. Every Sunday, while most of the city rests, this group gathers at schools, along roads, near temples, and hospitals to water trees, remove weeds, and plant new saplings. This approach is similar to that of an auto-rickshaw driver from Thane who has been watering roadside trees for years using buckets he carries in his rickshaw.
Even the pandemic could not completely halt the group's activities; when planting campaigns were suspended, group members switched to disinfecting streets and residential areas. Through the nursery run by Palanisamy, Pasumai Sangagiri has distributed over 100 thousand saplings free of charge across Tamil Nadu. Volunteers have planted over 50 thousand palm seeds along lakes, ponds, and irrigation canals—a low-cost greening method similar to what a resident of Pune did, turning a parking lot into a free nursery for over 25 years.
The group also intervened to save mature trees marked for felling as part of construction projects, carefully transplanting about 10 large trees, some older than 50 years, using cranes and heavy machinery, and then monitoring their recovery. The areas of Vadugapatti and Sangagiri Model schools, which were once barren, have now transformed thanks to the group's efforts. This change reflects what environmentalists often describe as a deeper, generational value of a single surviving tree.
When asked about his greatest achievement, Palanisamy did not cite figures. Instead, he spoke of children eating fruit from the trees he once protected as saplings, and of barren patches now covered in greenery. More than ten years after losing the banyan tree that shaped his childhood, his Sundays still belong to the trees he continues to nurture.
