A green wedding in the real sense

In a runup that is a shout out to climate consciousness Parag Shah a realestate professional started preparing for his daughter Vidhirsquos wedding scheduled on December 19 by donating 150 saplings to develop a Miyawaki forest in the city The Miyawaki technique involves planting saplings usually of native species very close together in a relatively small space so that when the trees grow they give a forestlike impressionThe saplings have been planted at a Vikhroli gurudwara said Subhajit Mukherjee founder of Mission Green Mumbai who implemented the projectMukherjee said ldquoThis is a super and special effort to plant native trees and support urban forest plantation These trees have been planted to maintain biodiversity I wish Vidhi Shah and Pranav Raval the young couple the best on their journey which has started with an inspirational green milestonerdquoVidhi Shah and Pranav Ravalrsquos new journey begins with a green milestoneEcoconsciousldquoI wanted to give back to nature and what better way than creating a dense green patch in the cityrdquo said Shah ldquoI have donated a total of 150 saplings so that the Mission Green Mumbai with their expertise can plant these in a befitting manner The 150 saplings stand for the 150 guests invited to my daughterrsquos wedding I learnt that there are approximately 1 crore weddings in India every year Just imagine if 1 crore families planted even five trees to mark that occasion we would have 5 crore trees in India every year what a huge difference that would make to the environmentrdquo said ShahOutoftheboxldquoI have asked my daughter Vidhi and her fianceacute Pranav to visit the plantation regularly to check on how the trees are doingrdquo said Shah a Ghatkopar resident ldquoDuring functions like these we usually buy new garments for loved ones I thought why not buy a new green piece of apparel for Mother Earth through this Miyawaki method My friends know me for thinking out of the box and I may have lived up to my reputation with this onerdquo he finished with a laughCouple speakVidhi said ldquoMy dad has always been a plant lover He told me that we are always taking so let us give back in some way Our guests have been informally informed about this initiative that a tree has been planted for each one and many of them were delighted I would like to tell people that one does not even have to plant 150 saplings for those who may be intimidated by the scale Simply plant one or two to begin with even that is a great startrdquo For Pranav the gesture is as simple as showing gratitude to Mother Earth He said ldquoLook at global warming and deterioration in conditions We need to do our bit to repair the lungs of the planet to make this a better place There is a lot of talk about climate change going green and ecoconsciousness translate that into actionrdquo There have been concerted efforts in Mumbai to develop green patches using the Miyawaki method which is apt for the Maximum City with minimum space