The Benevolent Maharaja of mother nature

It was a call on my phone that triggered the following  sequence of thoughts.

“ Chithi (mother's younger sister in Tamil), do you know that tulasi and arasa maram ( basil and pipul tree) give out oxygen all the 24 hours of the day! Wanted to share this info with you which I saw in the paper.” My niece Rani, a green enthusiast like me  was jubilant with this bit of news.

I had a similar experience, years back, at  Singapore where we lived  and we were new to the place. And I was as surprised as Rani  by a news I read.  The news was that there was a big fine of S$ 10,000 on a building contractor who had cut some trees and not just that  he was asked to plant double the number of trees he had cut in some other allotted place!

A fine for cutting the trees!!

It bewildered me  coming from a country where every Tom Dick and Harry  can cut off  trees without an inkling of remorse.  Trees are so precious for that small nation that felling of trees which has a girth of a metre and above should be notified to government even that tree sits in your own garden!!

Trees……… a giver beyond compare!! Like the great giver of Mahabharatham Karnan!!!

Do we know that we consume  three cylinders of oxygen per day?

Suppose the cost of a  cylinder of oxygen is Rs.700 the amount spent by each of us per day is Rs.2,100 and for a month it comes to Rs. 63,000

 And if we calculate for a year Rs.756,000 and if the average longevity is taken as 70 years we consume oxygen worth Rs. 52,920,000!!

And please remember that this is a free gift from nature

And hence  I become  a very happy person whenever I meet tree lovers!

Recently  we had an opportunity to  visit an extraordinary place in Yercaud  (a hill station in Tamilnadu) where our friends are living. It is a gated community called Wild Orchids. I would love e to call the person who promoted the place as a young visionary. When he allotted the land to various would be owners he made sure through an agreement that of the 10,000 sq feet they build their house only in 1/4th of the space leaving 3/4th to greenery!! I also congratulate the buyers to agree to such a wonderful plan and one among these wonderful owners are our dear friends Ram and Prabha.

And at the peak of summer when you can feel the heat in the lake area of Yercaud, this beautiful bowl of nature maintains the summer climate of the UK! The well laid out gardens including the vertical garden reminded me of the Biblical hanging gardens of Nebuchadnezzar !!

 People are still there who care for trees.  I would like to share with you the heart warming news  of the Chief Justice of Chennai high court whose compound wall had fallen down due to the recent heavy rains in November 2014. The PWD (Public Works Department) took up the job immediately (for security reasons) to erect a new wall. They informed the Chief Justice that they had to cut off six trees to construct the new wall. But the person vehemently refused and told them to construct the wall around the trees. The wall might look crooked but the honourable man  didn’t mind the aesthetics or the lack of it. As I read the news I said to myself  “ Thank you sir, if only higher ups like you  take up a stand for trees Chennai will ever be a green city”!

 Years back we were in Norwich U.K. The place was the Blue Bell Road and it was an avenue of horse chest nut trees and one early cold morning all the residents of the place came out to hug the trees. The problem goes like this : During the season when the tree is full of fruits they fall down in great numbers and the students tend to pick them up and playfully throw it across aiming at the fellow students walking on the other side of the road. The fruits often hit the vehicles passing by spoiling the vehicle's window panes.  A complaint was made by the road users and after some deliberations the city council decided to hack off the trees and one day  had gone there with the heavy machinery  but the residents standing around the trees would not allow them to  touch the trees! They said that the problem should be taken up at the school level rather than the tree level! And they won. The avenue of trees are still beautifying the place!

Whenever I go to our school CREA at Trichirapalli, Tamilnadu and whenever I have an opportunity to address the children I insist on the importance of trees for our survival. I make sure that they get the statistics about the trees into their hearts.

There is a saying in Tamil "You utter a lie; and you go on repeating it and someday it will become truth!"

For my part I don’t mind uttering a truth, go on repeating it till the whole humanity converts itself  to become the “FAN of TREES”!!