Runners along Mumbai’s Eastern Express Highway have come together to protect the pink trumpet trees that line their daily route, celebrating the blooms while campaigning to save them amid concerns over an upcoming elevated corridor project
Dr Aparna Govind and Ajit Kamboj at Vikhroli. Pics/SAYYED SAMEER ABEDI
The Eastern Express Highway (EEH) runners, a group of runners who train on the EEH, especially the Airoli junction to Ghatkopar service road, have a spring in their running stride. The Tabebuia heterophylla, also known as the Pink Trumpet tree, lining their route are now on the last lap, racing towards the season’s end. Runners consider themselves fortunate to run under the pink canopy and watch a pink carpet unfold under their feet as the flowers fall off the trees.
Many of these runners have a deep connection with the green around them. While the credit for planting and maintaining Pink Trumpet trees goes to the civic authorities, many runners have tended to the greenery by watering them, watching them grow, and blossoming.
Ajit Kamboj, 69, a regular runner, said, “The Pink Trumpet trees are Instagram magnets. The peepal and neem, too, are part of the bigger picture. I have, in fact, dissuaded several persons from breaking off twigs from the neem saplings to use as toothbrushes,” said Kamboj. We, runners, have also planted at least 250 peepal trees with the help of outfits working in the green space.”
Runners amidst the blooms at the Eastern Express Highway
The ultra runner who has run from Pune to Jejuri (50 km) and ‘Gateway of India to Dombivali’ (65 km) and has done the 42-km at that Tata Mumbai Marathon (TMM) in 2025 added, “In the summer I will be watering the plants on my bicycle, like I have done for years. I want people to realise that we are there because of the trees.”
The threat
Over 700 Pink Trumpet trees are facing possible removal because of the MMRDA’s elevated corridor project from Ghatkopar to Thane. Online, a petition to save these trees garnered more than 1600 signatures in a day. The BMC then did announce that the Vikhroli-Ghatkopar stretch was realigned to save 127 these trees.
“Urbanisation will always go on, but imagining this stretch without these trees is emotionally devastating. These are not just pink trees, they are one of the reasons our local community is in the pink of health,” stated EEH runner Dr Aparna Govind.
Dr Govind, who has completed over 50 half marathons and one 35 km Tata Ultra, lives at Kanjurmarg, said, “These trees have grown strong and self-sufficient over time. However, there were a few empty patches along the service road where Ajit Kaka [Kamboj] planted some trees.
These young trees needed extra care, especially during harsh summers. Some runners from our group, along with Ajit Kaka, who live close by, lovingly water them during the summer months.”
Save them
Dr Govind added, “Runners and citizens had come together recently and signed petitions to authorities to save these trees. We even formed a ‘Save the Pink Beauty’ task force and created a symbolic, ‘Chipko moment’ not as a protest, but as an expression of love and belonging.”
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
