Every morning, when the sun rises on the shores of the Iruvazhanji river in Mukkam, Kozhikode, the crimson rays bounce off the pointed leaves of bamboo trees lining the riverbank. A man named Damodaran Mukkam is walking barefoot through this bamboo forest, which he planted and has carefully tended to for the past 17 years . He knows every bamboo by heart. This is Damodaran’s 500-meter-long bamboo forest, which has more than 200 bamboo trees.

When he returned to Kerala, after working as a landscaper in Bahrain for over 20 years, Damodaran was stunned by how his hometown had transformed into an urban jungle. The condition of the Iruvazhanji river, polluted and ignored, pained him the most. Damodaran felt that he had to do something. He decided to transform the surroundings of his home into a forest. He spent almost ₹16 lakh to build this forest, using the savings he had set aside to build a home. “Initially, people objected. They were of the opinion that cultivating any other crop, would give me a yield unlike bamboo,” says Damodaran.