Jadav and the Tree-Place

Vinayak Varma

This is
Jadav, a tree-planter.
He loves
tree-places because they are full of life.
No-tree-places
make him terribly sad, because they are full of dead things.

Years ago,
Jadav was walking along the banks of the great Brahmaputra River when
he arrived at a big, empty no-tree-place.
It was dry
and hot. The sand was powdery and striped.

Striped
sand? How odd.
Jadav went
closer to take a better look.
Oh, but
they weren't stripes at all! The ground was covered in snakes!
Last
night’s floods must have washed them ashore, Jadav thought.

These
snakes weren't slinking and slithering and swaying about like
regular, healthy snakes. When Jadav walked among them, they didn't
hiss or run away or try to bite him. They just lay about like old
ropes, tired and still.
"Poor
snakes! They're dying from the heat! If only they had some shade to
lie in! If only this no-tree-place had some trees in it!"

Jadav
couldn't bear to watch the snakes die. It made him so terribly sad
that he sat down and began to cry.
But he
quickly came to his senses. "No more crying. From now on: only
trying!"
He jumped
up, ran back to his village and began collecting all the bamboo
shoots he could carry in his bag. "Regular plants won't grow in
the hot sand, but bamboo will. Bamboo is strong!"

Jadav
brought the shoots to the no-tree-place and started planting them
everywhere. It was hard, hot work, and it took years.
The river
grew thin one summer and flooded the next, sometimes bringing more
sand and sometimes taking it away. Heavy rains came and went. But
Jadav kept on planting.

In time,
the bamboo took root and began to grow. As it grew, it brought shade,
and the shade brought insects.
The insects
burrowed into the ground, and the earth below the bamboo trees began
to change. The dry and white became rich and brown, and the dead sand
became living soil.

Jadav was
no longer sad. But he wasn't happy either.
He looked
around his bamboo grove and thought, "A few-trees-place is nice,
I know.
But how wonderful it would be if this were a
many-trees-place!" The idea thrilled him.
So Jadav
went back to his village and began collecting many more seeds and
saplings.
He filled three big bags with Arjun and ejar and gulmohar
and koroi and moj and himolu.
"Now that our few-trees-place has
lovely brown soil, we can plant all these and more!"

Jadav
brought his new saplings and seeds to the few-trees-place and planted
them all around.
It was hard
work, his back hurt, and it took many years. The orange and blue
skies turned purple and pink, and villages became towns. The wind
grew laden with dust, and the river became grey. But Jadav's insect
friends helped to till the soil, and his tall bamboos gave him shade
and cooled the air. And Jadav kept on planting.

Soon, his Arjun, ejar and gulmohar, his koroi, moj and himolu, and all his many
other plants dug in, took root and started growing.
As they grew,
they spread new seeds, and the new seeds, in turn, took root. Shoots
became trunks, trunks grew branches, and the branches reached for the
sky.

The
few-trees-place that was once a no-tree-place now became a wonderful,
green many-trees-place.
But what's
a many-trees-place without many tree-creatures? When one came, the
others followed.

First, came
the birds.
They flocked and flew in from near and far, to make their
nests in Jadav's tree-place. There were vultures and pelicans and
storks and ducks. And warblers and thrushes and wagtails and chats.

Next, came
the animals.
They skipped and swung and sauntered in, to make their
homes in the many-trees-place. There were buffaloes and deer and
rabbits and gibbons. And elephants and tigers and rhinos.

Finally,
there came the snakes.
They slithered and swayed and sashayed in, to
cool themselves in the shade of Jadav's trees.
When Jadav
saw the snakes, he sat down and cried happy tears. He was so
happy that he wasn't even afraid of getting bitten.

Jadav's
tree-place had filled with feathers and beaks and wings, with claws
and tails and fangs.
There were
spots and splashes, stripes and flashes, and green, green,
everywhere.
The
tree-place was a forest, at last. And Jadav was a happy man.

Then Jadav
had another thought.
"Many trees in one place is good, I know.
But how wonderful it'd be if there were many trees in every place!"
So he
grabbed his bags of seeds and started walking across the world.
And
as he walked, Jadav started planting the seeds in all the
no-tree-places he saw.
And he planted. And planted. And planted.
But there
are so many no-tree-places in the world.
There are more
no-tree-places than tree-places now.
This is terribly sad, but Jadav
does not sit down and cry this time.

Jadav plants.

And plants.
And plants
some more.

It’s
going to be hard work, bringing all the old forests back.
The seas
have begun rising, and the winds grow cold.
Towns have become cities,
and Jadav is growing old.
But he keeps on planting. And planting. And
planting.

Jadav will
keep on planting until the whole world is a happy, lovely
lots-of-trees-place.

Jadav in Real Life
Jadav
‘Mulai’ Payeng is a conservationist and recipient of the
Padmashree, one of the highest civilian honours awarded by the Indian
government. Jadav lives in Majuli, Assam.
At the age
of 16, distressed by the sight of dying snakes that had washed up on
a sandbar banking the Brahmaputra, Jadav decided to plant some trees
in the spot. He started small, with bamboos, and grew an entire
forest, plant by painstaking plant. This was back in 1979.
Over the
next three decades, Jadav and his tree-planting have managed to
change the soil in the barren area. The 550-hectare sandbar is now a
lush, dense forest and home to a variety of flora and fauna,
including elephants, tigers, apes, deer and many species of local and
migratory birds. Jadav continues to visit and nurture his forest
every day, planting wherever he finds empty patches.

Growing
Up With a Mango Tree:
a Tree-Planting Activity
Just ate a
mango? Loved it? Want another? You can go to a shop and buy one, of
course. But it's a lot more fun (and free!) to use the seed of the
mango you just ate and make a few fruits of your own. All you need is
time and patience.
First, find
a nice patch of empty land near your house. Get a friend, sibling or
grown-up to help you plant the seed you saved in that patch. Make
sure the soil is loose and there's plenty of sun. It may take several
weeks of waiting, watering and watching before your seed turns into a
plant, so don't worry and definitely don't hurry.

Once your
seed germinates and grows into a healthy mango plant, get ready for a
lot more waiting, watering and watching. Take care that your plant
doesn't get eaten up by insects or animals, or get stepped on by
someone. If all this waiting is making you feel bored, read a few
books, sing some songs, and plant some more plants!
After a few
years, as you grow taller, your mango plant will grow tall with you,
until it becomes a big tree that you can climb and picnic under. This
is when the real fun begins. By now, your tree will have started
making its own mangoes, which you and your friends can eat. Even
better, those mangoes will soon start attracting other mango-loving
creatures to your tree: birds, ants, squirrels, bats, monkeys,
spiders and lots more.
Some of
these creatures will come to eat the fruit, some will come to feed on
the tree's sap, some to drink nectar from its flowers, and some
creatures will even come to eat some of the other creatures hanging
around the tree. But it's not all about eating. Some creatures may
come just to rest in your tree's shade, or to take a nap in its
branches. Your tree has many different uses for every different
creature!
Spend some
time every day watching who visits your mango tree, at which time of
the day they come, and what they do. Write down what you see in your
notebook. Also draw pictures of what you see.
See how
much you've done and learned with just one mango seed? Isn't
tree-planting fun? Now imagine how much fun Jadav must have had
planting his entire forest full of trees!