Daripalli Ramaiah, India’s tree man, died April 12th, aged 87

In Reddipalli, a village tucked into the dry red soils of Telangana’s Khammam district, there lived a man who measured life not in years or wealth, but in saplings. By his own modest estimate, Daripalli Ramaiah planted more than ten million trees. For over six decades, he travelled—on foot, later by bicycle, and sometimes on a battered scooter—scattering seeds in every barren corner he could find. His companions were pockets full of seeds, his cargo the hope of shade, fruit, and shelter for generations he would never meet.

To most, he was not “Daripalli Ramaiah” but “Vanajeevi”—the forest-dweller—or simply “Chettu Ramaiah,” the tree man. His eccentric appearance—a green placard draped like a shawl reading Vriksho Rakshati Rakshitaha (“Protect trees, and they will protect you”)—made him an object of ridicule in earlier years. Children chased his bicycle, adults dismissed him as a crank. Yet Ramaiah, undeterred, pedaled on. A devout believer in nature as deity, he once said: “I do not believe in people who cut trees but prostrate before a stone. For me, Nature is God, and God is Nature.”

Born in 1937, he never advanced beyond Class 10 in school. But his education never truly ceased. He read everything he could about trees, memorized their uses, cultivated their lore, and preserved news clippings on afforestation like sacred texts. His home, a modest two-bedroom structure, became a shrine to greenery, its walls festooned with environmental slogans. When his mission outpaced his means, he sold his land—three acres of it—to buy seeds and saplings. He named his granddaughters after trees.

Recognition, when it came, was not what he sought, but it was richly deserved. In 2017, the Indian government awarded him the Padma Shri, one of the country’s highest civilian honors. He received honorary degrees, accolades from political leaders, and was even included in school curricula. But his true legacy was wordless: forests rising where there had been none.

If most live as though nature is infinite, Ramaiah lived as if every tree were his last act of penance. He did not just plant trees; he planted the idea that one life, lived with purpose, could shade a nation.