Tree of Life

For the first time, among the several lenghthy drives that I had had in the city of Delhi, I took notice of them. They stood there tall and silhouetted against an indifferent city - a city that probably paid scant or no attention to them at all.

As my brother, who was driving the car, was in a rather pensive mood, I had nothing to do but stare out of the window. Looking back, I am really grateful to him for that. Atleast, it gave me the opportunity to realise that I needed to be grateful to many others besides my parents for my life.

The length of the road between Sarita Vihar, which is situated at one end of the city to Janakpuri, which is at another end altogether, is a long stretch. This gave me ample time to do all the observations in peace.

The evening was unusually calm with not even a hint of breeze. And, as I looked at them, I realised that they had always been there...I must have infact seen them too. It was just that I had never noticed them - atleast not in the way I saw them now. There were all kinds of them - some totally bare, some with thick blancketed covers. Some were old with knotted skins and some were young with soft tender looks. Some were colourful while others were not. And as I continued to stare at them, I suddenly realised that they were all looking very sad and very tired.

By now I was mesmerised by them. And what I saw amazed me. It couldnt possibly have been a figment of my imagination. They deifinitely looked tortured and resigned to their fates. They seemed to carry some heavy burden in their shoulders which made them droop. Suddenly, I felt as if I understood them perfectly. There they were imploring one and all, to stop being so cruel to them. They were stooping because they were indeed carrying the burden of a huge blanket of pollution on their shoulders. They were beseaching mankind to allow them atleast to breathe in peace. They looked tortured because life had indeed become hell for them. For them, the difference between CO2 and CO was not just a difference of a molecule of oxygen, but it was a matter of life and death.

Even as I experienced this strange enlightenment within me, a slight breeze began to blow. The breeze was slowly gathering into a pleasant evening wind. As the wind blew in fresh air, I looked at them again.

This time, the trees were swaying merrily - still standing tall and silhouetted against a blue sky. The old ones with their knotted barks, the colourful gulmohars and the not so colourful jamun trees, the evergreen neems and the bare acacias - all of them were swaying. As I hung my head in shame, had they perhaps understood that atleast one among the indifferent species called mankind had understood their predicament.

This is a middle of mine that was published in the HT a few years ago.