I had a dream…
but is its reality only mine?

The philosophical construct of ‘ownership’ wasn’t something I thought much about until one morning a few months ago, in quite an everyday instance with my grandmother. My grandparents live in Sainikpuri, a residential suburb on the north-eastern edge of Hyderabad. Like most of the plots in that area, a pocket of ‘leftover’ land lies between their compound wall and the road – a liminal space, a threshold of sorts. This no-man’s-land is where, years and years ago, she imagined the arching canopies of local trees – tamarind, bougainvillea, sita ashoka, and, most recently (and most significantly) frangipani – or champa.

In India, the fluid idea of territory often clashes with the rigid, colonial notion of property. The space outside the wall – on the verge of being street but not quite – constitutes a vital, contested, and curiously productive urban commons. Over the years, the many cuttings that she planted in the ‘verge’ grew into strong, stoic trees. The champa, a labour of love, was the latest flourish in this pattern of foliage.

Planting a tree may be simple, but ensuring its survival? The early life of this champa was an act of constant surveillance – almost war! We placed a wire mesh around it, protecting it from hungry cows and flying cricket balls alike. My grandmother and the gardener maintained a steady 5 o’ clock vigil – watering it carefully, debating over fertilizers, coaxing the small sapling into a young tree. Slowly, it began to thrive; a living monument to an alternate kind of ownership. One that was built on imagination, labour, and a shared commitment to the public. Despite being a tangible being – and even contributing to its surroundings – the tree, like all others, lacks a formal, legal title.

The question of ownership exploded one morning when my grandmother caught a thief red-handed – a woman who had chanced upon the poor champa’s first, pristine flower, glistening with dew, and plucked it. Her decree? The tree belonged to everyone, but she retained the right to tell people not to pluck the flowers, which, rather than being ‘put in her pocket’, should be left for all to enjoy!

This stance offers an intriguing perspective on the urban commons, one that moves beyond the strict Nolli1 map of the public-private binary. My grandmother claimed stewardship without title. Her relationship with the tree was based not on the right to exclude, but built entirely upon the duty to guarantee and protect its collective bounty. In a time where buildings are both artefacts and agents of relentless change, this value system suggests that true belonging is not tied to permanence, inheritance, or deed, but the sustained act of care. The champa’s fragrant beauty became a collective resource precisely because of her vision and subsequent devotion.

This gesture illustrates the ethical core of decolonizing urbanism. The inherited model from the West defines ownership as absolute control; the right to exploit. The ‘champa’ model, rooted in communal practice, suggests that to truly value something – in this case, an urban feature – is, ultimately, to let it go. By allowing its benefits to diffuse while safeguarding its existence, it provides a functioning spatial template for commoning in the dense, informal peripheries of the Global South.

The champa becomes more than a tree – it is an unassuming blueprint for resilient public space. It challenges us to measure the ‘value’ of the (un)built environment not by its commodified square-footage, but the extent of communal life it sustains. Today, the tree flowers in bunches of rich, ruby-red blooms, making it impossible for anyone to keep track of who picks what – the undeniable proof of her success. The tree wove itself into the public domain through sheer, abundant vitality, a tribute to a life that sprung from a private dream and became a public blessing. In today’s rat race of build-demolish-build, this anecdote speaks to an ancient, inherent wisdom; that the highest form of belonging lies in the willingness to care for what we do not exclusively own.