He saw the bare ground, the sweating children, and said, "We don't need cement; we need roots." He returned the next weekend with 50 saplings of native trees—neem, banyan, and gooseberry. He didn't just hand them over. He knelt on the hot soil, dug the first pit with his own hands, and showed the children how to plant.
When Vivek passed away in 2021, the grief was immense. But the next morning, thousands of his fans didn't just light candles. They planted trees. Schools named their groves after him. Highways he had lined turned into green corridors. actor vivek tree plantation
That was the beginning. Over the next two decades, Vivek's "Green Kalam" initiative (inspired by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam) became his parallel career. Before sunrise, he would be found on highways, near temples, in government schoolyards, or along lake bunds, planting saplings. He kept a simple ledger—not of money, but of trees. Each sapling got an ID tag. He would revisit them, water them, and if one died, he would plant two in its place. He saw the bare ground, the sweating children,
Years later, during a severe heatwave, Vivek visited that same school where it all began. The "barren playground" was now a cool, leafy grove. The original saplings were now towering giants. Sruthi, now a young woman and a teacher at the same school, ran to him. When Vivek passed away in 2021, the grief was immense