Image Courtesy: wikimedia |� thimmakkafoundation |� Saalumarada Thimmakka Saalumarada Thimmakka, an environmentalist from Karnataka, has been listed in BBC’s most influential & inspirational 100 women. She is the oldest person in the list for planting more than 8000 trees in 80 years. She lives an ordinary life, but she is no ordinary woman. In her own village she has got the honour of being named ‘Saalumarada’ for the work she has been doing for eight decades. The word ‘Saalumarada’ means ‘row of trees’ in the Kannada language. She planted and nurtured 384 banyan trees lined in a five-km stretch some 80km from Bangalore. Early Life Thimmakka was born in Hulikal village and just like any other woman of her village she too worked as a labourer and did not get any formal education. She was married off to a cattle herder named Bekal Chikkayya but the couple could not conceive even after 25 years of their marriage. Instead of cursing their fate, the couple tried to fill the void by planting and tending banyan trees as their own children. Every day they used to carry buckets of water and would travel four kilometers to water the banyan saplings. She, […]
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