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.......