Felling of the twin gulmohars

THE International Financial Centre in Gurugram, the Millennium City, towers way above the concrete jungle surrounding it. Clearly visible from the bedroom window of my son’s penthouse, it stands as a grim reminder of the rapid pace at which the city is losing its already depleted green cover. The skyline provides no respite from the monstrous spectacle of the never-ending growth of brick and mortar.

Happy to be back in our ‘green city’ Chandigarh after a short stay in Gurugram, my mind went back to the time when we had shifted into our house several years ago after my husband retired. Opposite our home had stood two tall, graceful gulmohar trees, resplendent in their fiery flamboyance. While their fragrant shade provided roadside vendors and the workforce relief from the sweltering summer heat and pouring rain, they added to the verdant charm of our surroundings. Alongside the ‘flame of the forest’, there was a variety of other glorious blossoming trees, predominantly amaltas, neem and kachnar, among others, whose cultural significance and medicinal properties are well recognised and valued in ayurveda. These beautiful trees, festooned with nests, grew all across the neighbourhood and morning walks were a delight in their midst. A smorgasbord of birds populated their welcoming branches. Their happy chirping heralded another beautiful morning and hailed the vibrant life of these trees.

Then, the slow, indiscriminate axing of the twin trees began. The owner of the bungalow outside which these beauties grew had no qualms about mercilessly lopping off the branches that overhung his terrace and obstructed the sunlight during winters. By degrees, the trees were brutally mutilated and they eventually disappeared altogether. We rued their loss till the day our grandson brought back a sapling from school as part of an ecological awareness programme. We then planted it lovingly in place of the twin gulmohars, hoping that it would survive the messy construction work which began when the owner decided to add a floor to his house.

Some years thereafter, the person who had inherited the property, moved in. He seemed to have an apathy to trees that grew around his boundary wall and decided to chop off their limbs. Despite our protests, he carried out his task till all that was left of it was a diminished canopy and a stubbed trunk, which at present supports a mesh of telephone and cable wires. The twisted, disfigured amaltas and kachnar have now lost their dazzling glory. Gulmohars are a rare sight. The sparrows have all gone, we miss their twitter at dawn, and Dilip Chitre’s prophetic lines keep ringing in my ears: ‘Trees are sacred, my grandmother used to say/Felling them is a crime….’