Ruskin Bond's Book of Nature

by Ruskin Bond

  Have you heard of the Garden of a Thousand Trees? Probably not. But you must have heard of the town of Hazaribagh in Bihar. Well, a huge mango grove containing over a thousand trees—some of which are still there—was known as hazari, and around these trees a village grew, spreading in time into the modern town of Hazaribagh, ‘Garden of a Thousand Trees’. Anyway, that’s the story you will hear from the oldest inhabitants of the town. And even today, the town is almost hidden in a garden of trees: mango and neem, sal and tamarind.

  All are welcome in a mango grove. But during the mango season, when the trees are in fruit, you enter the grove at your own peril! At this time of the year it is watched over by a fierce chowkidar, whose business is to drive away any mischievous children who creep into the grove in the hope of catching him asleep and making off with a few juicy mangoes. The chowkidar is a busy man. Even before the mangoes ripen, he has to battle not only with the village urchins, but also with raiding parties of emerald-green parrots, who swarm all over the trees, biting deep into the green fruit. Sometimes he sits under a tree in the middle of the grove, pulling a rope which makes a large kerosene-tin rattle in the branches. He can try shouting too, but his voice can’t compete with the screams of the parrots. They wheel in circles round the grove and, spreading their tails, settle on the topmost branches.

  Even when there are no mangoes, you will find parrots in the grove, because during their breeding season, their favourite nesting places are the holes in the gnarled trunks of old mango trees.

  Other birds, including the blue jay and the little green coppersmith, favour the mango grove for the same reason. And sometimes you may spot a small owl peering at you from its hole halfway up the trunk of an old tree.

  The Silk-Cotton Tree

  Most of you, even if you do not play badminton, are familiar with a shuttlecock. Well, if you take a shuttlecock and paint it a bright crimson, you will get a fair idea of what the flower of the semul (or silk-cotton tree) looks like.

  Now just imagine a tall, leafless tree covered with masses of crimson flowers, and you will know what this wonderful tree looks like in spring. There are few trees in the world that can compare with it in beauty and brilliance.

  You may, of course, have seen a semul tree either in the jungle or along a tree-lined avenue in one of our cities. It is a good shade-tree, losing its leaves for only a brief period, just before it flowers. During the summer months you will find its seeds covered with white cotton, which is blown far and wide by the slightest breeze. This cotton is not suitable for spinning and weaving into cloth, but it is used for stuffing pillows and cushions.

  Like most trees, the semul has its place in our folklore. Whenever the Murias, a forest tribe in Madhya Pradesh, found a village, their first act was to plant a semul tree at the centre of the site. There are others who use its wood to make the posts around which couples walk at the marriage ceremony. Images of parrots fashioned from the wood of the semul are also hung in the marriage sheds, for the parrot represents the spirit of the forest.

  Semul wood is very soft, and is sometimes used for making toys. Fishermen also use it to make floats for their nets. The seeds are valued as a nourishing food for cattle, while the gum from the bark is used in medicines by Ayurvedic doctors.

  The semul is as remarkable for the colour and profusion of its flowers as for the large number of birds that visit it when it is in flower. Some birds come for the nectar which is found in the big, red flowers; some come in search of the thousands of drowned insects which lie at the bottom of the flower cups; some come because the soft wood of the tree can easily be hollowed out for a nesting site. Whatever the reason, from morning till night the tree is full of visitors.

  Among those who visit the semul are a large number of crows, who come to have a few sips of the nectar before setting out on the day’s mischief. There are mynas of various kinds, squabbling for the best seats. Barbets and bulbuls, king crows and koels, all join in the feasting. In addition to the birds, palm squirrels dart about from place to place, tossing their fluffy tails from side to side, and chattering noisily as they jostle each other on the branches. And all the time flowers are being constantly broken off, falling to the ground with soft thuds.

  The rosy pastors or rose-coloured starlings are probably the most noticeable visitors to the semul tree. They come in flocks, not singly; their colour vies with that of the flowers; and they make such a racket that one thinks that a terrible riot is going on. But the pastors are not fighting, they are simply enjoying themselves.

  Another inhabitant of the semul tree is the big Indian bee. This bee lives in huge nests, or combs, which are usually attached to the branches of the semul tree. The straight, horizontal branches of the semul are just right for supporting the huge combs, which can be as much as five feet in length and two and a half feet in width. The residents of the comb are of three kinds—the males or drones who do no work, the females who lay the eggs, and the workers who build the giant combs. These are permanent colonies, filled with honey or wax or pollen.

  The sting of the big bee is painful and poisonous, especially in hot weather; but jungle tribes, such as the Kols and the Santals, have developed an immunity to the poison. They don’t mind being stung. But strangers to the forests have been badly stung, and it is wise not to disturb these bees, for they will attack both man and beast with great ferocity.

  There is the story of two shikaris who were resting between beats one hot May morning in a central Indian jungle. Overhead spread the crown of a tall semul tree with a dozen great combs of the big bee hanging from the branches. One of the shikaris unwisely lit a pipe. Up went the pipe smoke, and down came the bees! They were soon buzzing around the two shikaris, who beat an undignified retreat, running for over a mile across open country until they reached the safety of a river. They were so badly stung that they had to remain in the river for hours, up to their chins in water.

  From Small Beginnings

  On the first clear September day, towards the end of the rains, I visited the pine knoll, my place of peace and power.

  It was months since I’d last been there. Trips to the plains, a crisis in my affairs, involvements with other people and their troubles, and an entire monsoon, had come between me and the grassy, pine-topped slope facing the Hill of Fairies (Pari Tibba to the locals). Now I tramped through late monsoon foliage—tall ferns, bushes festooned with flowering convolvulus—crossed the stream by way of its little bridge of stones and climbed the steep hill to the pine slope.

  When the trees saw me, they made as if to turn in my direction. A puff of wind came across the valley from the distant snows. A long-tailed blue magpie took alarm and flew noisily out of an oak tree. The cicadas were suddenly silent. But the trees remembered me. They bowed gently in the breeze and beckoned me nearer, welcoming me home. Three pines, a straggling oak, and a wild cherry. I went among them, acknowledged their welcome with a touch of my hand against their trunks. The oak had been there the longest, and the wind had bent its upper branches and twisted a few, so that it looked shaggy and undistinguished. But, like the philosopher who is careless about his dress and appearance, the oak has secrets, a hidden wisdom. It has learnt the art of survival!

  While the oak and the pines are older than me and have been here for many years, the cherry tree is exactly seven years old. I know, because I planted it.

  One day I had this cherry seed in my hand, and on an impulse I thrust it into the soft earth, and then went away and forgot all about it. A few months later I found a tiny cherry tree in the long grass. I did not expect it to survive. But the following year it was two feet tall. And then some goats ate its leaves, and a grass cutter’s scythe injured the stem, and I was sure it would wither away. But it renewed itself, sprang up even faster; and within three years it was a healthy, growing tree, about five feet tall.

  I left the hills for two years—forced by circumstances to make a living in Delhi—but this time I did not forget the cherry tree. I though
t about it fairly often, sent telepathic messages of encouragement in its direction. And when, a couple of years ago, I returned in the autumn, my heart did a somersault when I found my tree sprinkled with pale pink blossom. (The Himalayan cherry flowers in November.) And later, when the fruit was ripe, the tree was visited by finches, tits, bulbuls and other small birds, all had come to feast on the sour, red cherries.

  Last summer I spent a night on the pine knoll, sleeping on the grass beneath the cherry tree. I lay awake for hours, listening to the chatter of the stream and the occasional tonk-tonk of a nightjar; and watching through the branches overhead, the stars turning in the sky, I felt the power of the sky and earth, and the power of a small cherry seed . . .

  And so, when the rains are over, this is where I come, so that I might feel the peace and power of this place. It’s a big world and momentous events are taking place all the time. But this is where I have seen the most momentous of them all happen.

  Sacred Trees

  Explore the history and mythology of almost any Indian tree, and you will find that at some period of our civilization it has held an important place in the minds and hearts of the people of this land.

  During the rains, when the neem pods fall and are crushed underfoot, they give out a strong refreshing aroma which lingers in the air for days. This is because the neem gives out more oxygen than most trees. When the ancient herbalists held that the neem was a great purifier of the air, and that its leaves, bark and sap had medicinal qualities, they were quite right, for the neem is still used in medicine today.

  From the earliest times it was connected with the gods who protect us from disease. Some castes regarded the tree as sacred to Sitala, the goddess of smallpox. When children fell ill, a branch of the neem was waved over them. The tree is said to have sprung from the nectar of the gods, and people still chew the leaves as a means of purification, both spiritual and physical.

  The tree is also connected with the sun, as in the story, ‘The Sun in the Neem Tree’. The sun god invited to dinner a man of the Bairagi tribe whose rules forbade him to eat except by daylight. Dinner was late, and as darkness fell, the Bairagi feared he would have to go hungry. But Suraj Narayan, the sun god, descended from a neem tree and continued shining till dinner was over.

  Why have so many trees been held sacred, not only in India but the world over?

  To early man they were objects of awe and wonder. The mystery of their growth, the movement of their leaves and branches, the way they seemed to die and then come to life again in spring, the sudden growth of the plant from the seed, all these happenings appeared as miracles—as indeed they are! And because of the wonderful growth of a tree, people began to suppose that it was occupied by spirits, and devotion to a tree became devotion to the spirit or tree-god who occupied it.

  In Puck of Pook’s Hill, Kipling wove some wonderful stories, around Puck, the tree-spirit, and the sacred trees of Old England—oak, ash and thorn: ‘I came into England with Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone, I shall go too.’

  Among the Gonds of central India, before a man cut a tree he had to beg its pardon for the injury he was about to inflict on it. He would not shake a tree at night because the tree-spirit was asleep and might be disturbed. When a tree had to be felled, the Gonds would pour ghee on the stump, saying: ‘Grow thou out of this, O Lord of the Forest, grow into a hundred shoots! May we grow with a thousand shoots.’

  The beautiful mahua is a forest tree held sacred by a number of tribes. Early on the wedding morning, before he goes to fetch his bride, the Bagdi bridegroom goes through a mock marriage with a mahua tree. He embraces it and daubs it with vermilion, his right wrist is bound to it with thread, and after he is released from the tree the thread is used to attach a bunch of mahua leaves to his wrist.

  Special respect is paid to trees growing near the graves of Muslim saints. Near the tomb of a famous saint, Musa Sohag, at Ahmedabad, there used to be a large old champa tree—perhaps it is still there—the branches of which were hung with glass bangles. Those anxious to have children came and offered bangles to the saint—the number of bangles depending on the means of the supplicant. If the saint favoured a wish, the champa tree snatched up the bangles and wore them on its arms.

  Another spectacular tree which has its place in our folklore is the dhak, or palas, which gave its name to the battlefield of Plassey. It has the habit of dropping its leaves when it flowers, the upper and outer branches standing out in sprays of scarlet and orange. The flowers are sometimes used to dye the powder scattered at Holi, the spring festival, and the wood, said to contain the seed of fire, is used in lighting the Holi bonfire. Legend tells us that the sun god aimed an arrow at the earth, and that it took root and became the palas tree.

  The babul (or keekar) is not very impressive to look at but it will grow almost anywhere in the plains, and there are a number of old beliefs associated with it. For instance, you can cure fever and headache at a babul tree if you tie seven cotton threads from your left big toe to your head, and from your head to a branch of the tree. Then you must embrace the trunk seven times. Try it sometime. You will be so busy tying threads that you will forget you ever had a headache! And there are no after effects.

  Another belief concerning the babul is that if you water it regularly for thirteen days you acquire control over the spirit who occupies it. There is a story about a man at Saharanpur who did this, and when he died and his corpse was taken away for cremation, no sooner was his pyre lit than he got up and walked away!

  In the folklore of India, the mango is the ‘wish-fulfilling tree’. When you want to make a wish on a mango tree, shut your eyes and get someone to lead you to the tree; then rub mango blossoms in your hands and make your wish. The favour granted lasts only for a year and the charm must be performed again at the next flowering of the tree. In spring, the young leaves and buds symbolize the darts of Manmatha, or Kama-deva, god of love.

  Another ‘wishing tree’, the kalp-vriksha, is an enormous old mulberry that is still cared for at Joshimath in Garhwal. It is said to be the tree beneath which the great Shankaracharya often meditated during his sojourn in the Himalayas. Judging by its girth, it might well be over a thousand years old.

  Whole forests have been held sacred, such as that in Berar which was dedicated to a particular temple; no one dared to buy or cut the trees. The sacred groves near Mathura, where Lord Krishna sported as a youth, were also protected for centuries. But now, alas, even the hallowed groves are disappearing, making way for the demands of an ever-increasing population. A pity, because every human needs a tree of his own. Even if you do not worship the tree-spirit, you can love the tree.

  Silent Birth

  When the earth gave birth to this tree,

  There came no sound:

  A green shoot thrust

  In silence from the ground.

  Our births don’t come so quiet—

  Most lives run riot—

  But the bud opens silently,

  And flower gives way to fruit.

  So must we search

  For the stillness within the tree,

  The silence within the root.

  VI

  Flowers

  I don’t think I could have got through life without the company of flowers. They sustain and stimulate. My desk is just a place of work until one of the children places a vase of flowers upon it, and then it becomes a place of delight. Be it a rose or a chrysanthemum or a simple daisy, it will help me in my work. They are there to remind me that life has its beautiful moments.

  When I step out for one of my walks, I look for wild flowers, even the most humble of flowers hiding on the hillside. And if I do not know their names, I invent their names, because it’s nice to know someone by his or her name . . .

  A New Flower

  It was the first day of spring (according to the Hindu calendar), but here in the Himalayas it still seemed mid-winter. A cold wind hummed and whistled through the
pines, while dark rain clouds were swept along by the west wind only to be thrust back by the east wind.

  I was climbing the steep road to my cottage at the top of the hill when I was overtaken by nine-year-old Usha hurrying back from school. She had tied a scarf round her head to keep her hair from blowing. Dark hair and eyes, and pink cheeks, were all accentuated by the patches of snow still lying on the hillside.

  ‘Look,’ she said, pointing, ‘a new flower!’

  It was a single, butter-yellow blossom, and it stood out like a bright star against the drab winter grass. I hadn’t seen anything like it before, and had no idea what its name might be. No doubt its existence was recorded in some botanical tome. But for me it was a new discovery.

  What’s In a Name

  If there is any dishonesty in our natures, sooner or later wild flowers will bring it out. The flowers of our woods and hills are often so difficult to identify that we are tempted to improvise—to find rare plants in places where they do not grow, and to discover other plants that no one has ever heard of. Even botanists make mistakes—unless they are the fanatical types, of whom it has been said that they visit their mothers’ graves only to study the plants that grow on them!

  To avoid any blunders, I shall confine myself in this short article to some comments on those wild flowers about which there can be little or no controversy. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive Flora Himalayensis available; but as most of the wild flowers growing between six and seven thousand feet in the Himalayas (in the vicinity of our hill stations) are similar to those of the temperate countries, their identification is not too difficult.

  Take for instance, the oxalis or wood sorrel. During the rains this plant takes possession of the hill slopes. Its pretty mauve flower set amidst a cluster of heart-shaped leaflets is unmistakable. The Paharis call it khatta-mitha (sour-sweet), because of the mild acidity of its leaves. Cows like it, though too much is supposed to cause diarrhoea; and it is said that the milk of the cow which has eaten the wood sorrel cannot easily be turned into butter. In Europe it was once used in salads. The origin of the Irish shamrock emblem was the leaf of the wood sorrel, but today the leaf of the whole clover (also common in the Himalayas) takes its place.