Mysterious life of a sapling

Mysterious life of a sapling

Every season is associated with some activities which are taken up not only at personal level but by official and non-government entities too. So, come the first drops of rain, government agencies and environmentalists sound the bugle and  start tree-planting activities in our country. Wise enough because monsoon rains are a blessing for plants.

It would be stupid of me to list out for you the benefits of planting trees so I would jump to the point.

A very dear doctor friend before going to work this Monday, participated in a tree plantation drive in their residential complex. She planted the kachnaar sapling given to her and went for work. You would think that was one good deed done and over, but she says that a sense of uneasiness has rooted in her mind since.

Her question is - who takes care of the saplings planted in these drives? With so much money, effort, time and energy spent on similar countrywide efforts every year, how many of these saplings actually survive?

Of course, this is neither a statistical report nor a research paper on trees planted during such occasions every year, but just a concern that I too share, and so I present for you my observations.

Generally, the forest department of every state hands out thousands of saplings to organizations and residential complexes to plant them in their premises. There are competitions for who plants the maximum trees/saplings and much rejoicing over breaking of records. The good thing is now you can transplant a grown tree which makes them less vulnerable to attacks. In Delhi, trees up to thirty years of age have reportedly been transplanted with a success rate of 85%.

Notice put up in a university

You would think our country would have been suffocated by such recurring outbreaks of verdure in the last 75 years. Far from it! Such efforts are always named drive or ceremony and once a ceremony is over, nobody looks at the venue till another such event is scheduled there, when new plants are brought in.

We all lovingly plant fruit and flowering trees in our houses. We water them, feed them manure and fertilizer, prune them, talk to/about them, admire them and worry about their growth. It is not surprising to find strict vegetarians mixing fishmeal or egg shells into the soil for their plants for the sake of their babies’ health.

I remember being as surprised as everyone else at metre long, silky skinned, healthy green gourds growing on a plant creeping up the mango tree in the house of an old lady in the neighbourhood> She was known for being quarrelsome and cantankerous. I was young and enthusiastic, so sent as a scapegoat to ask her and with utmost politeness. To my question about the secret, her retort was ਪੁੱਤਾਂ ਵਰਗਾ ਪਾਲਿਆ ਹੈ,  ਦੁੱਧ ਪਾਂਦੀ ਹਾਂ ਰੋਜ਼ ਇਹਨੂੰ (puttan varga paliya hai, duddh paandi haan roz ehnu. I have raised it like sons, I feed it milk every day).

But who takes care of the plants growing outside the circle of our sense of attachment? Have you seen pictures which could prove monitoring of their growth?

Photo: The Hindu 

Will you not agree that like plaques with names of dignitaries fixed on foundation stones which slowly become beak-cleaners or poop-receptacles  for birds, most of these plants also turn into fodder for stray animals, pee-posts for dogs-stray and pets both, or a target of mindless activity for humans who in their moments of preoccupation pluck the leaves or kick the tender stems spelling injury, even death of the plant? No wonder then that most of the time, cages are put around the saplings to protect the helpless plantlets from unwanted battery. 

Intense cold followed within a couple of months by harsh summers, kill most of these delicate plants. Some are killed by the kindness of contractual staff riding water tankers who in their zeal hose off the soil cover, exposing the roots to new threats. Those left, which have uncertain property rights, are the best examples of survival of the fittest in nature. Unfortunately, storms, cyclones and tornadoes are nature in rage as it turns against its own children uprooting big trees every summer and monsoon. I am not even mentioning pests or diseases. 

Cyclone Amphan strikes 270-year-old Great Banyan Tree at Shibpur, Howrah. Photo: The Telegraph

Not only that, I have noticed that tree planting also follows fashion trends. There are ornamental or pollution-fighting plants. Earlier it was Neem (margosa), Gulmohar (royal Poinciana), Kachnaar (bauhinia variegate), Amaltaas (cassia fistula), Moulsari (Mimusops elengi), Peepal (ficus religiosa), Shisham (dalbergia sissoo), Banyan, Gular (ficus racemosa), Jungle Jalebi (pithecellobium dulce), Kikar (vacellia nilotica) etc. and many other kinds. They lost popularity because clearing the flowers or leaves falling on roads every season took effort.

Sometime in the 80s, Eucalyptus trees made their appearance in thousands but the reports that they sucked up too much water and made land barren, erased them from the list.

Ashoka (Saraca asoca) trees have more or less always been the favourites because they grow vertically without disturbing the vicinity they are in. Yet they also fall to the shears when their growing branches start interfering with overhead electrical wires. We humans are such control freaks that we cannot let even a mute tree grow as it wants to.

It looks like now palm trees are in. Wherever you go, you are sure to see some kind of palm tree battling the climate.

If you have fruit trees in your house, you would know why they are not planted on public property. It seems that the fruit growing on somebody else’s tree is always like a trophy dangling temptingly. Would the civic authorities like to add dealing with accidents caused by missiles breaking heads of people and windowpanes of vehicles, to their already overlong list of duties?

As it is, they are already good at planting, chopping off and replanting trees. The moment any type of ‘developmental activity’ starts, the first to be turned to dust literally and figuratively are the trees.  

It is said that rows of Seemul (Bombax cieba)trees along the Madhya Marg in Chandigarh were asked to be cut down because people complained of allergies.

Chandigarh during spring. Don't I miss my hometown!

Railway colonies and cantonment areas are famous for being green and cooler than the rest of the city because of the trees. I was told the civil engineer who was responsible for  the construction of the officers colony in the then Diesel (now Banaras)Locomotive Works had first mapped out the colony and got fruit trees planted in each house so that around the time the construction was over, they would start bearing fruit. Besides, botanical gardens and most government offices, some private residential colonies also take good after-care of their saplings.

God be merciful on those religious souls who every morning, pluck flowers (without permission, of course) and sometimes the whole branch from the plants growing in other people’s houses, to offer them to God or for auspicious ceremonies in their own homes.

Once I asked someone whether god would be happy with her or with the owner of the tree. Her confident answer was God would be happy with her because she took the flowers from an overhanging branch which would otherwise have withered. I asked again if she should not offer something that was her own even if bought.

Her answer was “Bhagwan bhavna dekhte hain (God considers the sentiment)”. 

Surprised that God had told her what He wanted, I persisted, “Tab to aapko phool charhane ki bhi zaroorat nahin hai, woh samajh lega. (Then you do not need to offer flowers. He would understand.”)

Now she was indignant and walked off, angrily muttering how stupid some people are who ask such useless questions and spoil their day.

Now shouldn’t the fact that I have this supreme power to spoil somebody’s day with a mere question be a potent ego-boosting raison d'etre for me?  

                                                                                        - Anupama S Mani