Among BBC's Most Influential Women - Planted 8000 Trees

[Ayisha]

Saalumarada Thimmakka's life story is a testimony to the ideal that women must challenge the status quo in order to be the change that they want to see.

An environmentalist from Karnataka, Saalumarada has earned a spot in the prestigious 'BBC's 100 Most Influential Women' list. The oldest person in the list, Thimmakka has been lauded for planting over 8,000 trees in 80 years.

Besides being ostracised by her relatives and neighbours for not being able to bear children, Thimmakka has had to endure many other hardships — such as extra work, starvation, and generally heinous behaviour meted out by her husband's family.

Life is not easy for an Indian woman unable to have a progeny. And for a daughter-in-law in India's rural back of beyond like Thimmakka, who belonged in this bracket, life was even tougher.

She says she was treated like a maid, working from morning till night, doing back-breaking work. A silver lining was her husband Bekal Chikkayya. He was more sensitive than the others, given that he stammered and had to experience the ridicule of people around.

"One day we thought why not plant trees and tend to them like we would our children," Thimmakka recalled.

She, along with Chikkayya, enthusiastically set about planting the banyan trees all along the stretch to the nearest town.

Together the duo have planted 8000 trees. Planting scores of trees, and then having to maintain them, is no joke. As Thimmakka says, she along with her husband tended to them like "children" for many years, protecting them from the elements, animals and other predators until they grew gigantic and independent. Her age? "105," she says, without batting an eyelid.