To kill a tree

T he tree was young and strong and it took a long time to kill. It took two workmen with axes two days, including tea breaks. Which, without conscious irony, they took in the shade of the leafy branches of the tree they were chopping down. It was a gulmohar, which i’d planted 13 years ago, along with several other saplings, when Bunny and i moved into the National Media Centre. The NMC is built on a little over 22 acres and many hundreds of the local babul trees that used to cloak that part of the Haryana countryside like smoke from evening chulhas must have been cut down to make way for the brick and cement of our colony. I’m not a tree-hugger, but still felt that some restitution was due. So Bunny and i planted several saplings in and around the postage-stamp open spaces at the front and rear of our house. The two gulmohars at the rear were foothigh saplings when we put them in the soil. I wonder when they’ll grow tall enough for us to see their branches from our first floor window, Bunny thought aloud. Then we went about doing our thing and left the newly-planted gulmohars to do theirs. And they did it very well. In a few imperceptible years their branches, aflame with scarlet flowers in summer, rose above the first floor window, flooding the room with afterglow and screening from view the ugly scars of new construction in what had once been open fields behind our house. I felt the smugness of selfsatisfaction, of having done the right thing. I’d given back, in however small a way, a little bit of what we take away from the earth every day, everywhere. Righteousness invites its own revenge. The roots of one of the two trees had spread, crushing the underground sewage pipes, causing the drains in the house to back up malodorously. Bunny called in Harish, the handyman, who studied the problem and diagnosed that the tree would have to go. Cut down our tree, that we’d planted and watched grow till it stood taller than the house? No way! Over my dead body!, i spluttered in the baffled rage of the do-gooder whose good deed has come home to roost. Harish shrugged a phlegmatic shrug; a practical man who makes a livelihood doing practical things, he has little time for the pangs of middle-class sentimentalism. Either the tree was cut down, or its roots would endanger the foundations of the house, he indicated. The choice was ours. It was a choiceless decision, and it was left to Bunny to make it on our behalf while i moped. Harish called the men with the axes. I listened to the rhythmic thunk! of the metal biting deep into the tough fibres of the wood and thought of trees, of their dispassionate tenacity and the hopes and fears and guilt we invest in them. In the imperative of our scheme of things we clear away forests, woods, groves, and in ceremonial expiation we plant a sacrifice to tomorrow. Unburdened with memory, the trees survive us, our machinations and muddle-headedness and bad faith. They endure the steel and concrete of our devices and desires, and outlast even the subtle and more deadly project of our remorse. Harish knocked on the door to tell us the job was done. There has been a replacement, of course. A dense-foliaged species which blooms seasonal flowers of bright yellow and which Gosain the mali tells us will grow tall enough for us to see from the first floor window. But not so tall, or so deep rooted, as to jeopardise the domestic arrangements as the gulmohar had done. Harish, man of all trades, helped in the selection and assured us the services of his axe-men will not be needed again. Despite his assurances i haven’t gone out to see the sapling. Just in case, and unknown to us, along with it has been implanted the seed of betrayal.
( Jug Suraiya -TOI 10/07/2009)