Last month the mulberry tree in our garden was laden with blossoms. It did not excite me, because I did not expect to get any fruit from it! Because the bats and birds would devour all the fruit before we got to see any, as had happened the previous year. We also have pomegranate and guava trees, but the squirrels eat the pomegranate seeds and the parrots or the occasional langur eat the guavas. So why waste time and energy nurturing fruit trees, without the benefit of the fruit?
Hadn’t the great teacher Jesus himself warned that, “Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire” (Mat 7:19). John the Baptist had earlier issued a similar warning, “The axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire” (Lk 3:9). A couple of years ago I had followed this advice for another mulberry tree.
It had, of its own, come up in the shadow of one of the jackfruit trees. It was laden with fruit, not yet ripe, and the family was eagerly looking forward to some juicy fruit. But early one morning the tree was bare. Not a single berry, not even on the ground. Overnight, the bats had gobbled them all. I was livid. The axe came out and the tree came down. What use for a tree that gave us no fruit, and would also be an obstacle to the jackfruit tree?
I decided that I would keep only the jackfruit, lime and citrus trees in the garden, as birds and bats didn’t attack them. One summer the lime tree was loaded, so welcome for juice or pickle. Then right before our eyes, with hundreds of bright yellow fruit on it, the tree just shrivelled and died. Its roots had been attacked by white ants. We were shattered. A month later the peach tree also shrivelled up, destroyed by the white ants.
I planted some more lime and Chinese orange saplings. The oranges bore fruit, but not the lime trees. Nature defies logic. Then a minor miracle occurred. Another mulberry tree emerged of its own on the very spot where the lime tree had withered. I didn’t expect it to survive, but it did; and bore fruit the next year. We got none of it thanks to the bats and the birds. So I began to sharpen my axe again.
It was around that time that I read a newspaper article about the Govt’s afforestation drive. Remember Sanjay Gandhi’s eucalyptus trees during the Emergency (1975 -77)? It was an ecological disaster. The forest dept did not seem to have learnt its lessons. In its urban afforestation (usually below electric transmission lines) it was planting glorified shrubs, not trees, and none of them were fruit bearing species.
In contrast, from early childhood I remember driving down shaded avenues from my hometown, Kanpur, to neighbouring cities like Lucknow, Allahabad, Agra and Jhansi. These roads were lined with fruit bearing mango and jamun trees. They also had leafy trees of the fig family like pipal, pakad and gular. Such trees were the favourite haunt of the hariyal (green pigeon), a shikari’s prize. The oldest road, known as the Mughal road, was built by Sher Shah Suri in the 13th century. It extended from Peshawar (now in Pakistan) to Calcutta. The British renamed it as the Grand Trunk (GT) Road. Our forefathers seemed to have a vision that we lack.
They hadn’t planted those trees because they themselves wanted to eat the fruit. But the villagers, the roadside urchins and the birds and bats would have something to eat. Weary travellers would find solace and refuge, and the tarred roads would be protected from the unrelenting onslaught of the summer sun.
The article that I had read stated that if there were no fruit trees then there would be no birds either, and we would miss their twittering sounds. I reflected further that if the birds decreased, the insects would increase, and so would vector borne diseases. It got me thinking. So I made a conscientious decision to allow the pomegranate, guava and even the ubiquitous mulberry tree to grow. Nature again defied logic. This year we had a bumper crop of mulberries, our fingers and lips stained deep purple with mulberry juice. Nature is a great teacher. It teaches us the “novel” management mantra of win-win situations. Respect nature, and it will bless you.
We also have the joy of being awoken every morning by the birds in our garden – the sweet whistle of the rock chat, the cooing of the doves, and the twittering of the red whiskered bulbuls. Winter visitors to our garden include the raucous tree-pie, the glittering purple sunbirds, the hoopoes, the white-eyes and the green bee-eaters. A foretaste of heaven.
A forest officer once told me that we should also grow trees with dense foliage like the neem and ashoka, which emit maximum oxygen. In 1998 I had written a poem “Brother Neem”, about the life and death of the hundred-year-old neem tree in our ancestral house. It is attached herewith as its message rings out loud and clear. When we moved in 2002, I took with me a sapling of the grand old neem, and planted it in our new home. It is now a large tree, and in turn I have planted its saplings in the park in front of our house. So the cycle of life continues.
Recently there was a Sparrow Day and an Earth Hour to save the planet. Cute. Bollywood celebs switched off their lights for an hour, and enjoyed a romantic candlelight dinner. Several other “concerned environmentalists” lit candles too, to substitute for electricity. Stupid. They were probably burning up more natural non-renewable resources than they had purportedly saved. I also wonder if those celebs had switched off their air conditioners alongwith their lights?
We don’t need pseudo environmentalists to tell us what to switch off or on. Instead let us put our ears to the ground, to pick up the gentle promptings of nature. During the recent tsunami on our east coast, it was the wild elephants that had picked up the deep rumblings of the sea, and migrated to higher ground before disaster struck.
Nature speaks to us through the trees and the bees. Could we perhaps switch off our TV sets, including National Geographic, and heed the call of nature (no pun intended). As Jesus said, “ If you had faith like a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it would obey you” (Lk 17: 5-6). So let us have faith in God, and love for nature, including the ubiquitous mulberry tree.
* The writer is a nature lover and an environmentalist.
APRIL 2010
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