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 ...