What My Tree Told Me
I I was planted in 2016 in an urban residential colony, where everything was green. The roads were lined with myriad trees, arching over the tarmac forming a lovely ceiling, shielding vehicles and passers-by from the cruel sun on hot summer afternoons. Two-way roads were partitioned not by iron and concrete barricades, but by picturesque bougainvilleas almost always in full bloom with pastel-pink flowers. Birds ruled the canopies: flowerpeckers, Shikras and a plethora of passerines in between. Empty plots of land were usually kept unkempt, becoming ecosystems in their own right— shrubs and herbs grew unchecked, and warblers, Grey Francolins, peafowls, many reptiles and little critters found a happy home in the thickets. In the centre of this paradise was a huge piece of public land, completely vacant. If you ask any citizen of Coimbatore what the fate of 6.5 acres of empty land in a residential colony would be, a) they wouldn’t believe that such a thing even exists, or b) they ...