What the trees are telling us

“Trees, for example, carry the memory of rainfall. In their rings we read ancient weather—storms, sunlight, and temperatures, the growing seasons of centuries. A forest shares a history, which each tree remembers even after it has been felled.”

— Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

I am no expert on trees, but I am a hopeless romantic. And I am guilty of calling trees ‘witnesses to the history of our times’ and not just ‘trees’. I can’t help but think about all the changes in season they would have survived and all the battles for dominance among various species they would have witnessed. And Anne Michaels could not have put it better when she wrote ‘a forest shares a history which each tree remembers even after it has been felled’. My series titled ‘The many moods of trees’ is a celebration of that.

My love affair with trees started on a cold winter morning at Jim Corbett National Park, home to the magnificent Sal Trees. Sal (Shorea rubusta) is a beautiful tree that often grows up to 35 to 40 m tall and has a distinct shining foliage.

If you stare at a Sal Tree long enough, you might see a tree that has the patience and calmness of a monk (pardon the anthropomorphism). All it wants to do is, take its time and slowly but surely aim for the sky. While doing so, it ensures the survival of other trees, shrubs, climbers, fungi, lichens, mosses and of course birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

Sal Trees in Jim Corbett NP, India

In the book, ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’, the author Peter Wohlleben, makes an interesting case for the many sacrifices trees make on their way to personal and social growth. In the forest that he studied, he specifically observed how trees slow down and sacrifice growth today for a better tomorrow - the process that includes shedding leaves, depriving the young of enough light, and slowing down the growth. This slow growth is the key to ensuring that their inner woody cells are tiny and contain almost no air. That makes the trees flexible and resistant to breaking in storms.

Sacrifice at every stage, small or big, is a part of the life of a tree.

A solitary tree, or ones that are part of a forest, have so much to tell us. A tree does not go around the world to find beauty and joy, it lives its entire life and finds solitude in the same place. So if I had to take one lesson from them, it would be that home is where you are. Home is not a dreamlike destination in some other location, where everything will be perfect. It is not a place outside of us, it is inside of us, possibly a place we are yet to find.

The sands of time: An ode to a desert

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams”

— Antoine de Saint

For the longest time, I could not find the right word to describe the first thing that struck me about sand dunes in the Thar Desert. I discovered that word a few months back — ephemeral.

Ever since my first visit, I have been fascinated by the ephemeral nature of the sand dunes. My series on Portraits of a desert is an ode to that.

The only constant thing about deserts is change, and the sand dunes are not spared either. There is a constant ebb and flow — the form, shape, texture, and if we look close enough, the colour, depending on the mood of the sun and the clouds.

However, there is more to sand dunes than just that.

Every time I look at sand dunes, I am reminded of a book of history. All through the day and night, a lot unfolds on these sand dunes. Animals big and small, like, birds, insects and reptiles live on the dunes, some use them as a passage, while some use them as battlegrounds — predator and prey battle it out in the quest for survival. Explorers like us walk across the dunes; leaving behind our imprint.

But the dunes, quietly, nonchalantly remove all traces and return to the same pristine condition, but it is never the same again. When you return the next day, true to the ephemeral nature of the sand dunes, the shapes and formations are different.

So many layers of history are hidden beneath these dunes; plenty of stories, several victories and defeats, all buried in the sands of time.

The day we saw nothing in a forest

It was the last day of our trip to Corbett National Park and we were a little disappointed because it was a cold winter morning, and we had ‘seen’ nothing.

Then slowly, but surely, the light changed. The clouds cleared and the first rays of light seeped through the tall Sal trees, while a rich mist illuminated the land. A gentle breeze picked up golden dust from the little patches of dry earth below. The sun persisted and with all its strength, managed to win this battle. It lasted only for a few minutes but the scene will stay with me forever — the magic of winter mornings in forests. The mist will be back tomorrow, the sun will put up a fight again, but I won’t be there to witness the magic.

That day we saw nothing and saw everything.

And there began my love affair with trees, more on that here.