Little Sapplings Grow Into Mighty Oaks
By
Col K K Sharma
Planting and seeing a tree grow is just like seeing your child grow – sans the tantrums, temprament, moods, schools, colleges, insecurities etc. You only get sheer pleasure watching it change its colours with different seasons. The tiny, light green leaves which suddenly erupt every spring, grow every day changing their colour to dark green till they become a canopy engulfing all the branches. The tree is then ready to provide shade, nesting space and succour to humans and animals. Do you remember stepping into shade of a lush green tree from the burning sun in summer ! What a relief it always is.
Karanj or Milletia Pinnatta, as per Wikipedia, which abounds in East and tropical Asia and Pacific nations is also a native tree of Malwa Area and is a treat to the eye – especially during summers.
I also grew up in the company of this tree in Delhi as one of them stood majestically opposite our house in the colony park and have vivid memories of spending afternoons under its shade when even fans were rare. We tied jute rope swings on its branches, put a small flat wood seat with notches on the sides to fit on the rope and made a “jhula” or ” piing, as called in Punjabi” and then swung high in the air. We also clambered up on its branches like monkeys and ate rolled chapaties sitting there. There were no sandwiches during those times and all we would get were these chapaties in which the vegetable made for the day or simply some pickle used to be put and rolled. Now a days, these are I think referred to as KATHI ROLLS with cheese or chicken stuffed in it.
Some of the best memories of my life are thus woven around this tree. I am happy to state that this tree opposite our house still stands tall, 65 years after my birth, and the house is still with us.
It was thus natural that when I built my own house in Mhow, opposite a golf course, I would plant this tree. It did cross our mind that all others were planting palm and other decorative plants and that when this tree grew up, it may block our view of the golf course. But we over ruled that. The happy memories, shade and other benefits of this tree far outweighed the accepted ornamental considerations. As a matter of fact, we planted two of them just outside our boundary wall. They were planted sometime around 2012 or 2013. Happy to show you one of them. A treat to the eye.
Incidentally Aspire Academy is a small school that we run on our ground floor.
Note : K K I too planted a BANYAN tree sapling abandoned on road by somebody 15 years plus back. Now it is around 30 to 40 feet high and I’m proud to say that I communicate with it whenever I pass bye like father and son duo and it gives me immense happiness and pleasure to see this fully adult tree full of red cherry and birds chirping on it.
Ravindra Mokashi
