India, July 5 -- Every time Prakash Nayak, 43, walks past the Ashoka tree near Kavale Math on Walkeshwar Road, a shiver runs down his spine. It's been eight years since a branch broke off and fell on his 91-year-old aunt, claiming her life, but the trauma lives on.

"I received a phone call asking me to rush to GT Hospital. Locals had taken her there after the accident and I cannot shake off the image of her lying in bed, her life slipping away," he recalls.

But it's more than the one Ashoka tree the Nayaks worry about. Something as ordinary as passing beneath a tree now fills them with unease. "Since the accident, we are extra-careful while walking under all trees, especially in the monsoon. After all these years, low, looming branches ...