We, the Peepal

There is something magical about the rustling of the leaves of the peepal. Many years ago, when we moved in to Reach for the Sky, where our apartment is on the first floor, I noticed a small peepal sapling growing in a corner in the plot behind us. This plot had a small house, long since abandoned, and plenty of land around it The peepal is a hardy tree – it can even grow out of a crack in sheer concrete, because it gets its moisture, and nourishment, from the air. I knew that, in the course of time, it would dominate the landscape and provide beauty, shade and fruit, in addition, naturally, to the hypnotic sound of its leaves rustling in the wind. It was a rustle that The Buddha must have had inspiration from, as he meditated under it at Bodh Gaya.

The sound of the leaves on a dark night can be eerie. If you aren’t conscious of the Peepal nearby, if you are dreaming, as I often do, of nothing in particular or of everything in general, the sound can jerk you back to awareness, indeed heightened awareness, as you look around you in apprehension. Is it an animal ? you ask in that instant before the realisation.

By mid 2002, about a year after I had first seen the peepal from my backyard, the tree had grown well and a year later, it had reached the height, where its branches were at about eye level from my first floor perch. But it was in 2004 and the succeeding year, that the tree displayed its potential, as a possible transit point for the many mynas, tailor birds and crows that populate the area. On a lovely evening, we all watched a spotted owlet, its distinct call resonating in the stillness of a summer night, and it stared back at us with a touch of insolence. I hesitantly switched a torch on and it flew away, to be back the next day, and the next, with its equally vociferous mate. Now in its fifth year, the tree was tall, attired well and confident. I couldn’t have asked for a more distinguished neighbour.

I arrived from work one day to see it being chopped down. The old house itself was to be demolished, to be substituted with a much larger, modern city dwelling. The peepal was the first to go. I stood by the grill, upset and angry in equal measure, yet this was about as much as I could do. Architects are the ones who can truly prevent such idiocy, for their standing with their client gives them the credibility to propose options. Yet, architects are taught to build, never to preserve and those who do protect ecology, do so from the goodness of their heart, not from the practice of their curriculum; in a ‘professional’ course, trees are, well, unprofessional, if they don’t add to some standard measure of aesthetic appeal. …but that’s enough of discourse.

The owlets went away as well; the chopping of the peepal wasn’t the reason, for I heard them for some months after. When the new house was complete – a concrete castle, with not an inch of space for Nature – its new owners did a puja invoking blessings, no doubt, for selfish prosperity. It probably never crossed their conditioned minds that, had the peepal remained, their joy would have been infinite, beyond any measure that prosperity can define.
Last year, on our small farm at Javalagiri, we planted five peepals, and followed up with a couple of saplings in mid July this year. Maybe its the only way I know of getting back at the ignoramuses who own the house behind mine. Or perhaps, I yearn to hear the spotted owlet call out to us, from amidst the leaves of the peepal.......

The Truly Great

My father, who passed away a quarter century ago, was a study in contrasts. He had the method of an accountant (which he was by profession), yet the heart and soul of a romantic. Rummaging through his papers and clippings, I came across Keynes and Keats and his own collection of thoughts often. I seem to have got his proclivity for method for much of his own writing and clippings have been carefully preserved.
Last month, as I opened an old diary of his - which now is a hiding place for my daughter's pocket money - a little piece of paper fell out, yellowed with age. I picked it up carefully; it had the smell and the feel of another age, and the neat trimming of the paper could only have been from my Dad's sure hand. The paper had a short poem printed on it, written, alas, by an unknown author, whose style is most unusual, yet brilliantly maverick. The poem reads:
This I have learned at last
That gentleness
Is bred within the strong of heart
Those who possess
It wholly are not weak, but brave
Seeing life clear
They understand that arrogance
Is hidden fear.

My years have shown me that
Compassion mends
Wounds graven deep upon the soul
And comprehends
That valour is an empty thing
When born of hate;
And only those with tenderness
Are truly great.

I have read this many times since and it has helped me understand my father a little more. A quarter century after him, I can only label this better late than never.

Just how people choose their email ids is fascinating to observe. A number of them begin with their age or year of birth in the mail id – such as something like i-promise-i-am-not-a-moron_37@yahoo.com or shutterbug1985@bigshitnochief.com . Soon, this makes people self conscious. Every time they send a mail they worry if the truth will hurt them. “Will it get around that I am 37?” They then send out a mail to all those who have still kept in touch with them, despite their advancing years. The mail reads like this: “Please direct all communication (irrelevant spam, gossip, corny jokes, puzzles that add upto purple and the rest) to moron_halifax_texas@yahoo.com, a courageous attempt to get others to believe that the place they live in is a pleasing qualification to have on a CV. Sometime later, of course, when the downturn hits, they move to Hyderabad or Bangalore, necessitating yet another mail notifying change of identity. Why, you ask? Well, they do not wish to appear to be false, of course. When you live in Harohalli, you cannot have a Halifax mail id. The problem is that you cannot have a Harohalli, after the underscore, in your mail id as well. Its just not cool and the Yanks might think that you ain’t a comeback kid no more. This apparently complex problem is now solved: people simply appropriate the Harohalli onto their surname. So a Vinayak Harihar Rao in school (‘yuck’ to all the boys who knew him well, ‘Vinayak’ to his parents, ‘Rao’ to the PT Master, ‘Nose-digger’ to the girl sitting on the first bench), would morph into a US-returned Hari Harohalli, with an email id such as hari.harohalli@i-still-promise-i-am-not-a-moron.com . The full stop in mail ids is very powerful, much better than the underscore, more definitive than a dash. You will be amazed at just how many of India’s villages have thus entered mail ids. The defensive e-mailer always argues, with a weak smile, that the 'harohalli' is the result of the US Immigration Surname law - an argument that is now as old as the hills and rather strained.

This evolution of the email sapien carries considerable baggage. I have had, for a while now, a spreadsheet that I do not update every week, often sending mails to the original mail id. Now, I also know that these fellows checks their original mail ids at least once a week, so no doubt their year of birth or past age is still a matter of public knowledge. Perhaps, some academic type should write a paper on this matter.