UP woman performs funeral of ‘200-year-old’ tree

For 37-year-old Shalu Saini, performing the last rites of unclaimed bodies is an act of service to the poor. However, it was for the first time that she carried out the funeral of a tree.

A 200-year-old gigantic semal tree, which had been around for 4-5 generations of people, fell on Wednesday, said Saini, a single mother of two children. The last rites of the tree were performed on Friday at Nai Mandi Shamshan Ghat in Muzaffarnagar. As per Hindu cremation rituals, Saini used some part of the tree and consigned them to flames.

Its stories had been passed on through village elders, she said, adding that it was a call from inside to help the tree in getting ‘mukti’. “I felt sad as if I had lost a family member,” she said.

She consulted a Hindu priest, before collecting some part of the tree, and carried out the rituals. Saini said she did not tell anyone about the funeral of the tree. “People came to know about it later.”

“I will continue to perform such funerals of trees if I get the orders from Baba Mahakaal (Lord Shiva). The trees give us oxygen, shade, flowers and fruits, and I feel that they deserve a decent farewell,” she said.

Saini said she would also perform a ‘havan’ for the tree during the upcoming ‘Pitr visarjan amavasya’ — a Hindu ceremony held to honour their ancestors.

She has been performing the last rites of unclaimed bodies in the district and helping the poor with funeral rituals of their near and dear ones for the past five years. Saini said she had performed the funeral of over 3,000 people.

Reacting to the semal tree’s funeral ceremony, convenor of the Prayagraj-based Ram Naam Bank Ashutosh Varshney said, “Shalu Saini definitely deserves applause from all sections of society.”

Varshney said the Ram Naam Bank, which is a religious organisation devoted to Lord Ram, would honour Saini at Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj in 2025. It would also hold a series of seminars and discussions, where novel and noble ideas such as these, which upheld the spirit of Hinduism and other aspects of spirituality, would be discussed, he said.