Rooted Folks....

My young friend, Nanki Nath, from Jaipur, studied at the the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and is currently a doctoral student at the Industrial Design Centre, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai (Mumbai). She is also a blogger, and blogs at , what else, Nankinath  

The campus where she studies  (and where I live) , is 400 acres of virgin land on the shores of the Powai lake, where parts have been landscaped and organized amidst structures dedicated to educating  the country's young.

Wooded areas, mowed lawns, folks with laptops and wires in ears, cattle moving around thinking of safety in numbers, shorts, tees, heads covered with saree palloos, kids on bicycles, walking to school kicking pebbles and sticks around, we have them all.  Sometimes with a leopard thrown in for variety.

And it just came to mind, that this capture of a tree, from her office, really tells it like it is .....

(photo by Nanki Nath of IDC)

Designer trees
one of a kind,
posing
standing,
all pervading
amidst a
straggly lawn
shying away
to the edges,
starved of resources,
hogged by this
unique leafless entity,
looking down in wonder
at its shadow roots
just below the surface.....

It takes
an old mother tree,
aging graciously,
remembering its life,
a tree resplendent in leaves
crowded and green,
communicating ,
holding in its womb,
birds,
nests,
and squirrels,
to grow roots so deep,
that they spread
deep inside the earth,
nudging
a rock here,
a spring there,
chatting by a water table,
telling everyone
about those
who sat in its shade....

And a 1st year M Des***,
nudges a 2nd yearite,
and asks,
"Should we move those benches elsewhere now ?"


*** M Des : Master of Design,  the first degree offered in Design, a  2 year course.

Banyan Aji

This photo of a Banyan tree, aged at the neck, so to speak, was posted by my blogger friend Magiceye, as part of his Mumbai Daily : Monochrome Mania series.

Nature has an unusual way of sometimes replicating outlines of human face-shapes. And sometimes it brings to mind the aging neck of a long-gone grandmother in her 80's.....

 (photo by Deepak Amembal Magiceye)

Once
a versatile young woman
extending her mind
to many sides,
and reaching
far and wide
in native medicinal matters,
amidst
great attention to her
offsprings
and green connections,
she now stands
entrenched
in place,
in her golden age,
still majorly green,
but
unable to battle
the wrinkles
at her neck.....

Trees, Humans, and the obsession with color

Our lives are sometimes complicated due to preponderance of color . And sometimes trees explain it better.

If we only listened.....

(image courtesy Google)
Much later
along the
Road of Life,
they stopped
at the Big Tree,
admired the Land,
and the expanse of green
nodded
in approval
at it all.



Spying the
younger one
in her own
different green
further ahead,
they stopped,
turned,
and asked
the Big one ,
"Does that land belong to you too ?"

And the Big tree
shook her head
in disgust
and despair
and said,
"the same land,
the same water,
the same Sun
the same benevolence
of Nature,
just because the little one
is a darker green,
how does it matter whose land it is ?

Or are you one of those
who is
always looking
for grass that is greener...?"