I am running as fast as I can, over the green grass that tickles my bare feet; hop scotching over puddles of fresh rain water. The wind is rushing through my hair; the raindrops gently pit-patting on my head, then trickling down my back giving me goosebumps of delight. How I love the rain! How I wish I could bottle it up and then I would wear it every day like perfume.
“Our” tree
In the distance, I see “my” tree. She seems to beckon to me; her great big leafy branches waving out to me. I run to her — the giant mango tree. I don't know how old she is, but she's always been there. The first tree I learned to climb, the tree I've sat hours in, the tree that has always welcomed me back every summer vacation. And now again, she gathers me up in her gentle, moss-covered branches that so generously drop down luscious, juicy mangoes every now and then.
This tree is not just mine. It is home to probably a million other creatures; those I can and cannot see. To mention a few, there's my friend Silver — the one-legged crow, who is busy drying his feathers now. Then, of course, there are squirrels, spiders, tree-frogs, chameleons, ants, centipedes, millipedes, and not to forget hundreds of living creepers, vines, mushrooms and the zillion teeny-weeny microscopic organisms, all of whom live in a symbiosis with “our” tree.
So, here I am miles from busy Chennai, in the sleepy little town of Pallakad, nestled in the Western Ghats. Far, far away from the mad rushing crowd, in a land where trees burst with flowers or fruit, hills are adorned with cascades of gushing streams, ponds teem with life, croaking bullfrogs and little fish chase each other; flowers pop pretty heads through laterite walls…
These are not uncommon here, unlike in the city, where, we, from behind tinted glass and from sky-high air-conditioned rooms, do not see, smell, hear or feel. We talk proudly of building multiplexes and high rise complexes, cutting down one, two, a hundred trees or even an entire forest, whatever it takes. After all, to us they are projects worth millions. But these projects only cost a million lives; disturbing an entire community of the million creatures that depend on a single tree, including us humans.
We've lost ourselves amidst gun fires and bombshells that we throw on ourselves. We kill, poison and pollute; cruelly marring the face of earth, features that were once and still would be beautiful and pure, if not for our selfish lives, and in the whole process destroying ourselves.
As I look down from “our” tree into the vast green space all around, the pretty, intricate quilt of fields and pastures that are myriad shades of green, I also see the sky strewn with ribbons of crimson, vermilion and indigo.
Cheekily, peeping from behind the clouds is the sun, touching every living thing with his comforting warm rays. And arching across the sky, is a rainbow in all its glory. There is hope…
Yes, and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.
SHARANYA GOPINATH, II Year, Apparel Production, NIFT
