Orchard man of Jalaun

Mataprasad Tiwari's mission to plant trees persists even 30 years after its inception

- BHAGIRATH SRIVAS

WHEN MATAPRASAD Tiwari left his job as a salesman at a tractor shop near his village to plant trees, people called him a “mad man”. A devastating drought in 1988-89 had left most of the land in Tiwari's Meegni village in Jalaun district, Uttar Pradesh, barren. Setting up an orchard seemed a waste of time and resources. But the all-round devastation is exactly what spurred Tiwari to take up the initiative in 1990. “I thought, trees provide oxygen, food and shade. If there are more trees, it may help mitigate the impact of the droughts,” he says.