On green gold...

Unlike most days, I decided to come to office with a friend in car yesterday. We followed our usual bus route through Mysore Road to E-City via flyover and Corporation, and I don’t know how I’d missed it before; maybe I would be blissfully asleep in the bus every day. Something seemed amiss as we neared Gopalan Mall in Mysore road yesterday morning. It looked too bright and oddly sunny. It took a minute for the horror to sink in. The huge trees on either side of Mysore road have been felled for the purpose of road widening!! There is an empty patch just opposite Gopalan mall where a lonely peepal tree still stands, probably thinking the clichéd “mera number kab aayega??”

The gravity of the situation was suddenly and glaringly obvious. Is there no alternative to felling mammoth trees for road broadening purpose? We are aware of the effects on deforestation. Global warming and greenhouse effect are spoken about in every second home. And we allow indiscriminate felling in the name of progress. Are we really going to let matters pass till they are totally out of hand? As I waited for my wave of nausea to abate, I was starting to see what disgusting hypocrites we have become.

We feel hurt when someone close to us is hurt. We feel miserable when our pets fall ill. We very well know plants and trees have life too. Why can’t we feel anything when these precious trees are chopped down? Is it because they are mute and immobile? Or because, they just give, give and without expecting much in return?

Today is apparently Earth Day. I’m no eco-propagator but I take this opportunity to list a few facts I know for sure.

The organizations in charge of road widening and in turn tree felling, do promise compensation for the felled trees in terms of planting trees and saplings in some other area. It is a different matter altogether that there is no one to check on how far the claimed compensation is being carried out. If they do carry out as promised, it is interesting to note that the artificial forests they build are full of Eucalyptus or similar trees with long and pointed leaves. In a layman language, I can call them conifers.

Eucalyptus has medicinal properties, no doubt. But we need oxygen and shade too. Anyone with a pea sized common sense can tell that trees/plants with wider foliage (broader leaves) give out more oxygen. Eucalyptus and other cone trees grow fast but they tap maximum underground water and then, try resting underneath one of these tall trees on a scorching afternoon for pronounced effects.

I was on my way back home the other day from an aunt’s place when we had to pass the artificial forest maintained by Khodays’ group in Kanakapura road. The afternoon sun was merciless and the heat was unbearable but innumerable long coniferous trees served no purpose in the regard. I could not help thinking; had it been a forest full of the Indian Beech Trees (honge mara) or the Sacred Indian Fig (peepal tree), there would have been no dearth for pure oxygen supply and my journey would have been so much cooler.

One Sacred Indian Fig singlehandedly manages the oxygen supply required by 1000 men. True, they take eons to grow to full glory but we can at least preserve the existing handful giants and make sure the next generations benefit too. With the alarming rate of global warning and environmental imbalance, I feel it is high time we have rigid, stringent laws against indiscriminate felling of trees.