Life of a Tree

They came equipped with all the cranes. In fact two cranes and a backhoe excavator. The main road was blocked from two sides so that no traffic would come and they could work in peace. They were replanting a fallen tree. A large one. It was reclining on our building for close to two weeks now. It used to be a large tree but now it is just a long stout wooden staff. A man with an axe had come the previous day and hacked off all the smaller branches that had green leaves. Nex day the other larger branches were chopped off by a man standing on the dolly of a boom crane. He used an electric chain saw because these branches were fatter. The large fallen tree with so many branches was shorn of all its branches. Then they pulled the slanting tree out of the ground and rested it on the footpath where some disinfectants were painted on the exposed and cut wood. After digging a deep hole where the tree stood they put the trunk back, essentially a straight piece of wood with one thin branch holding a few leaves and some roots. They covered the base with freshly dug mud so that it does not fall back again.

I was wondering. Why are they taking so much trouble? If they could pull the tree back (it was uprooted somewhat and leaned against our building during the super cyclone Amphan - see pic on the left) as it was it would be fine but after chopping off all the branches what is the point of planting it back? Why not plant a new sapling instead? It will grow much faster than this old tree. This tree, will actually never grow back to what it was. At best some new small branches will come out of the place where there is a Y now. It will look quite ugly actually.

But then a realisation dawned on me. To us Indians that old tree is a person. It has life. It is like we are trying to save an old injured man. It is not just another tree that we want there. We want this particular tree to be revived. We want it to live. I wonder if this view will be taken anywhere else in the world. 

We take great pride in the fact that one of our finest scientists, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose had scientifically demonstrated that plants have life. Whenever vegans talk about cruelty to animals Indians say plants also have life and it is equally cruel to kill them for food (most food crops are harvested after they die and most vegetables are basically fruits that are collected without killing the plant but who will argue with logic).

When I shared the news of this replantation on facebook it was shared by complete strangers and got likes and comments from many many viewers. I was indeed amazed. For the record, three trees in our neighbourhood were revived like this.

We might forget in a few years. So it is best to note down here that while we were holed up in our respective houses fearing the Covid-19 infection, Calcutta and coastal Bengal was ravaged by a super cyclone called Amphan. This happened on May 20, 2020. Though life loss was minimal due to timely evacuation of people in coastal regions, disruption to normal life was severe. Parts of the city were without electricity for close to a week. Rural south Bengal was worse. Telecom lines were down for weeks. And most visibly hundreds of trees were uprooted and fell all over the city bringing down all sorts of cables. Even lamp posts and traffic signals were flattened. I have never personally seen such fury of wind.

Traffic signals in our neighbourhood

The tree in front of our house also fell. It was a large tree. About the height of our 4 storey building. I do not know what variety it is. It had the leaves that were similar to an Ashwath tree but obviously it was something different and not quite the same. The tree, along with several other trees on our side of the road, that is the western flank of the road, fell. They all fell to the west, suggesting the wind was blowing here from east to west. 

The tree in front of our neighbour's house fell on their boundary wall and broke it. Our tree reclined on our building and didn't fall to the ground. On the next day I realised some of the leaves had wilted. I thought the tree was perhaps dead. It did not break our building in any way but I was worried that another strong gust of wind might push it down and break our and our neighbour's boundary wall if not injure people. 

After a few days when we discovered that no one so much as bothered to come and even inspect the fallen tree we went to inform the office of the local councilor. She is also the Chairperson of the municipal corporation as well as the local MP. Quite a heavyweight. Someone from her office told us they don't have any manpower as every one is stuck in the lockdown and advised us to inform the local police station, which we dutifully did. Police noted down our name, phone number and address. 

After this a group of municipal workers came to remove the tree that had fallen on the shed put up by the local club in front of their club room. I asked them about the fate of our tree. They said this tree will require cranes and ropes etc and only the Parks And Gardens