Felling of a Tree

The incident:

I woke up on Thursday morning with the sound of a loud crash. Metal seemed involved so I assumed some guys had decided to meet in the growingly popular way that they meet in real life in Bangalore these days. Then the kids in the neighbour’s house started running about getting very excited. Got out of bed and onto the terrace and looked down towards the intersection. There weren’t any vehicles there but a huge branch from a tree had fallen across the road just beyond the intersection with its branches grazing a couple of unlucky vehicles parked on the other site of the road.

A little about the scene of the crime

The road i live on is a busy road with a lot of traffic flowing through it throughout the day. In fact there is so much traffic that the road is a one way now. When we moved in about 27 years ago, there used to be a lake in front of the house and a cattle shed and a large village well close by where kids would jump in during the summer for a splash. Since then, the city developed so much in this direction that there are people from townships way beyond who head into and across the city through this street.

The central character

My lack of botanical knowledge prevents me from giving you the type of tree it was whose branch had fallen but it had large beautiful leaves that grew in clumps and were of shades varying from a deep green to brownish red which looked fabulous in the twilight. I did not realise that the tree was so large till the branch which had fallen exposed the rest of the main tree. The foliage in the trees was quite dense and I had seen parrots flying to and from the tree a few times.

The action

The fallen branch immediately caused a huge pile up on the road even though it was not peak traffic time. The resulting chaos had the traffic police officials from the nearby station appearing on the scene to try and resolve the problem. A few persons were rounded up and the task of clearing the path for traffic commenced. It took more than a couple of hours to cut down the fallen branch into smaller more manageable pieces. There also appeared that cutting wood was a skill that a lot of people got a better appreciation of in the process. Traffic flows from all sides were managed and the scene was cleared. Traffic resumed on the road and returned to its noisy levels.

The crime

A little after this, the sound of chopping wood made my dad, niece and myself look up from our morning frolic on the terrace. The sound was coming from the direction of the tree. There were a couple of men at work on the main tree. These guys looked like they knew their business well and were efficiently chopping off its limbs. All three of us stared at this for some time trying to register the scene. The first thought that came to mind for me was that it looks like somebody wants to teach the tree a good lesson for what the branch had done, a lesson the tree would not forget. My dad muttered something in disgust and said that it’s going to be hot this summer. My niece’s face had one of those expressions that convey the confusion in a child’s mind and only said..’Cutting the tree’

I went about the rest of the day’s work. In the evening I climbed right on top of my house to see the sunset since I am trying to fill my evening with as many sunsets as I can in the time left ahead. Looking in the direction of the intersection brought my attention to the tree again. In the fading twilight it looked arresting and I could not take my eyes off it. All the branches except for the main trunk and its two biggest branches had been cut off. A few twigs of leaves remained from one of these branches. As I looked at it, the arms seem to resemble outstretched arms. The part where a large branch had been chopped off at the root resembled the downturned face of a man in deep tired sleep. The place where the branch that had fallen in the morning had been connected to the tree resembled a wound in the side where a large spear had been thrust into the side of a man. I stood for a long time looking at the thoughts that this connection brought to my mind.

Conspiracy theories

My stupidly analytical and chattering mind comes up with all kinds of conspiracy theories at a time when I least expect it. There used to be traffic cops that stand at the turn at the start of the road to fine unsuspecting traffic offenders. Had someone who had got into a confrontation with the officials decided to create some mischief by cutting down the branch. Had the branch just fallen down because of the heavy winds and the rest of the tree paid the price for its weakness? It has been very very windy around Bangalore in the last few days and was this an early warning from nature about the fierceness of this year’s monsoons? There are a couple of people who stand in the shade of the tree ironing people’s clothes. Was this an attack on them by some rivals in a turf war?

Conclusion

I stood today morning and looked at the tree. My parents had gone to church. A parrot appeared from somewhere and seemed to have lost its bearings since it didn’t find the leaves it was looking for. It rested on the naked branch for a couple of seconds and then flew away as the strangeness didn’t appeal to it. I stared at the tree for a few moments and felt like I was in my own personal church. My mother says that the twigs are enough for the tree to grow back but I believe it will be a good few years before the foliage gets back to its pre-assault density if it ever does get back.