Rooted in the past and waiting for the future.

This magnificent banyan tree has been on the property that my mother-in-law grew up in. Silent sentinel for more than a hundred years, it overlooked three bungalows. Over the years, the tree saw it evolve into a multi-storey building.

The gardener’s wife who lived in a hut beneath its shade used to tell my mother in law stories of a snake with a man’s face ( naagpurush )living among its gnarled roots.

“He’s there to guard the property,” she used to tell my mother in law who at that time was a wide-eyed eight-year-old.

Till today my mother-in-law believes this tree is standing watch, keeping all of us safe in its spreading umbrella.

But On 17th May this year, it took a severe beating as the winds of Cyclone Tauktae brought half of the tree crashing down. Luckily, there weren’t any cars parked beneath its shady boughs. And even more fortituously, no one was walking beneath the tree.

An arborist was called to assess the damage and see if the tree could be saved. After all it was a 140 year old tree and the longest living thing on this property. He said that the tree had outlived its purpose and should be brought down as it was keeling dangerously to one side with the balancing weight on the other side lopped off by the storm.

However, the residents of our Society still wanted to save the tree and another arborist was called to corroborate this diagnosis. The second tree specialist was slightly more hopeful and advised us to chop off the branches he thought were essential and for about a week the entrance to the building was sealed off lest the tree toppled over.

But it seemed that the tree had really outlived its purpose.

Ironically just a day after World Environment Day (June 5th) , at around 6.30 a.m. this morning, it gently fell down knocking off a branch from the Mango tree near by as it came down. Luckily no one was walking under the tree as it fell and only one car parked nearby was damaged.

As the residents mourned the loss of this big giant of a tree, we realised that the roots were only three feet deep into the ground as the tree was actually on solid rock! Moreover, the roots had rotted and the tree was disease ridden. So it was only a matter of time before it came crashing down.

Yet in its fall, it remained protective of the property making sure that it did not come crashing down the compound wall and more importantly, did not harm any human life.

I went down to see if there really was a Naagpurush as my mother-in-law used to say. There was nothing but gnarled and twisted roots.

But perhaps there was a mythical naagpurush protecting us after all.

Ciao