As we wandered through the picturesque hamlets nestled in the Western Ghats as part of my work for the Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan, we were struck by a sight both familiar and fading — a group of villagers seated under a giant banyan tree in Asavale, shaded by its sprawling canopy, resting on a stone base crafted from the region’s dark basaltic rock. It wasn’t just a resting spot — it was a living remnant of our ecological and social heritage.
This structure is what we traditionally called a paar or chabutara in Maharashtra, aralikatte in Karnataka and in northern India, it resonates with the concept of the choupal — a communal space centered around an old tree where generations gathered to converse, debate, learn and trade.
These trees — mostly Ficus benghalensis, Ficus racemosa, Ficus amplissima, Mangifera indica and Tamarindus indica — were the beating heart of the village. Apart from providing shade, they offered identity, continuity and community.
A typical paar was a platform built carefully around the tree trunk using local stone, ensuring ample breathing space for air and water to percolate into the soil.
A simple dictionary definition of paar is a structure built around a tree. Usually, it is a circular or rectangular, about 3-5 feet in height and does not have a parapet.
Taller paars sometimes have steps. These spaces served as venues for weekly bazaars, informal courts, milk collection centres and even mobile barbershops and blacksmith units. They often also became site for village meetings or marriage functions.
Most importantly, they were places for elderly villagers to share stories, for children to play and for communities to pass on their oral traditions.
But times have changed. Urbanisation has crept into India's villages, bringing with it concrete pavements, ornamental plantings and a slow erasure of the traditional village layout.
The cemented bases around old trees, often poured tightly around the trunk, now suffocate the roots and block the essential flow of air and water — ironically, in an effort to ‘protect’ the tree. In many cases, this leads to tree decline or dieback, breaking an ecological and cultural chain that has endured for centuries.
A 2024 study published in the journal Nature Sustainability by Martin Brandt and team brought to light a deeply worrying trend: Over 5 million large trees have vanished from Indian farmlands between 2018 and 2022.
Central India, particularly Maharashtra and Telangana, has emerged as a hotspot of this decline. Trees with sprawling crowns, once critical for biodiversity and microclimate regulation, are disappearing at an alarming pace.
These trees, some more than 50 years of age, are irreplaceable in the short term. Their large canopies help moderate temperature extremes, serve as habitats for birds and pollinators, store carbon and act as symbols of resilience. Their loss is not just ecological, it’s emotional and cultural.
In the name of development, we are quite literally cementing over our past. Once-green and permeable, villages are turning into heat islands that are unable to absorb rainwater or offer respite from rising temperatures.
The disappearance of the paar is more than the loss of a structure; it marks the erosion of traditional knowledge, communal spaces, and indigenous climate-smart infrastructure that existed long before such terms were coined.
In response, some corrective steps are being proposed. In 2021, the Government of Maharashtra introduced the ‘Heritage Tree’ initiative, which mandates the geo-tagging of trees older than 50 years for their protection under the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act of 1975.
The state’s climate change department is also urged to recognise a tree’s rarity as well as its botanical, historical, religious, mythological and cultural value while defining a heritage tree. But such policies need to scale nationwide and be woven into village-level governance and planning.
To truly conserve our heritage trees and paar structures, we need a multi-pronged policy framework. First, the need for geo-tagging and health monitoring cannot be overstated. This can be used to identify and digitally map trees older than 50 years. Periodic scientific assessments needed to be conducted to check for disease, decay and stress.
Then, ecosystem service valuation needs to be done. Carbon sequestration, shade value, air purification and biodiversity support these trees provide must be quantified.
Further, conservation has to be incentivised. Financial or social incentives must be provided to Gram Panchayats and individual farmers who maintain and protect heritage trees.
Strict protection norms need to be implemented. Obtaining permissions before cutting heritage trees must be made mandatory and unauthorised removals penalised.
Finally, the paar culture has to be revived. Traditional paars can be reconstructed or repaired using eco-friendly materials. Then, these spaces can be used as community learning hubs, especially for climate education and biodiversity awareness.
At a time when climate change, heat stress and ecological disconnection are on the rise, it is more critical than ever to revisit and revive the traditional wisdom of India's villages. A single giant tree, standing at the centre of a village, can offer shade, stories, sustenance and sanity. It can be a symbol of rooted resilience in an increasingly fragmented world.
We must not allow the paar to vanish into memory. We should preserve these trees not just as silent witnesses of time, but as active participants in building a sustainable, inclusive and culturally rich rural future.
Because in the shade of these trees lies not only our past, but also the promise of our future. Therefore, the paar is not just a stone platform — it's the foundation of our rural heritage.
Sangram B Chavan is senior scientist (agroforestry), ICAR-National Institute of Abiotic Stress Management, Baramati (Pune) Maharashtra. AR Uthappa is scientist (agroforestry), ICAR-Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute, Goa. PS Khapte is scientist (vegetable science), ICAR-National Institute of Abiotic Stress Management, Baramati (Pune), Maharashtra.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.