BENGALURU: Bengalureans are now working towards celebrating every day of the month as April Cool Day. A campaign started by a residents’ group is urging people to plant trees, instead of playing pranks on each other to pull April Fools’ jokes.
Residents of different neighbourhoods in Malleshwaram, Vidyaranyapura, Nagwara and Basvangudi have planted saplings in the nearby areas to participate in the initiative. After planting the sapling, they take to the social media, and post messages like, ‘Plant trees and say April Cool instead of making someone April Fool’.
“The idea is to plant trees as much as we can,” Jagadish Raj, a resident of Vidyaranyapura, said. “Many people spend a lot of time thinking about how they can trick people in April. And it is not just about April 1, since people continue to play pranks the whole month and call it April Fool’s month. Instead, we could plant trees and make it April Cool. To make a beginning, a few of us planted about 10 sapling, including neem, honge and flowering trees, this week,” he added.
In Basvangudi and Malleshwaram, the residents have decided to plant about 200 saplings to observe April Cool. They planted forest species like Peepal (arali mara), Fig (atti mara), Gooseberry (bettada nelli mara) Champak (sampige mara), which have low maintenance and can grow fast. “Usually, we voluntarily plant saplings from June to October every year. But this time we decided to plant them in April and campaign for April Cool,” said Kavya Simhan, a resident of Basvangudi. “This year, the temperature has increased hugely, and by planting saplings, we hope to reduce the temperature as well as bring down the pollution level. We started on April 1 by planting 50 trees, and wish to reach 200 by the end of this month.”
The residents of Nagwara also joined the initiative, and posted their activities on the social media after completing the April Cool challenge. They planted about 15 species of plants in their locality, according to Sameer, who lives in the area. “In the name of development, many people have started cutting trees. Bengaluru is not the Garden City anymore. We must reclaim its name and get our city back to looking beautiful with greenery,” said Sameer.