Silent saviour

A single-handed mission to ensure that Kashmir's majestic chinar trees do not disappear from its landscape

- MOHSIN MUSHTAQ

FOR MOST of the last decade, Abdul Ahad Khan's daily has remained the same. He leaves his house in Kashmir's Nagri village well before dawn and goes to the common land in the Band Wader forest area, where he has planted several chinar twigs. Till 9 am, he waters and tends to the cuttings and adds fertiliser to the soil, after which he returns to the village to find jobs as a daily-wage worker. In the evening, he checks on the saplings again before returning home. Through this routine, he has already seen some 1,500 chinar saplings grow into tall, healthy trees.