When a guardian is uprooted

In our ancestral village in Uttarakhand, there was an ancient fig tree. To us, it was not just a tree — it was Umru, the ageless one, a being that carried the soul of our land within its roots. Its vast, gnarled trunk was like a living diary of generations. Its mighty arms, like a guardian, sheltered birds, monkeys, children and secrets alike. For us, it was a world in itself: a playground, a refuge….

Its presence was woven into our lives. The hill itself bore its name, as though the land and the tree were one inseparable being.

But then came the road, and it tore into our hill’s chest with machines. Just 10 metres below Umru’s roots, the earth was wounded deeply. No wall was built to hold its strength, no hand of care stretched to preserve what was priceless. And when the monsoon rains arrived, heavy and relentless, they were no longer a blessing. One night, under the fury of the storm, the hill trembled, the soil slid, and Umru after centuries of watching over us fell.

The morning after was unlike any other morning the village had ever known. A heavy silence hung over the entire village. People were quiet. With Umru’s fall, something inside us had been uprooted, too. It had been more than a tree — it was our memory, our pride, our belonging, our faith. We had believed Umru to be invincible, but its fall taught us the deepest sorrow — that even the strongest guardians of nature, when betrayed by human hands, can be lost forever.

Col Tirath Singh Rawat(retd), Dehradun