The Trees' Pledge

Old school Windows hurled at each other making huge sounds. Winds blew heavily that afternoon with the unique sound of a whistle. And the students sat with absolute silence. Mamatha teacher continued to read a chapter with loud voice and the students kept listening to her keenly. Probably she is the first task master in the history of this government school to have marked full attendance on a rainy day. Students feared her in the beginning but later attended her classes voluntarily. I was a ten year old kid by then studying in fourth grade. It was the rainy season of the year 1995 and the year had witnessed some of the heaviest rainfall. The scent of the soil before rains used to be so good. It was another such day in the classroom and it rained continuously for almost two hours. Fearing even more heavy rainfall, our teacher let the students early so that children would reach their homes safely before it gets too late. Our teacher had started her career in our school as an assistant teacher. She resided in a village 5 km away from our school. Everyday she would walk to her home after the classes as there was no bus facility in our village in the evenings. As it was raining heavily she had to wait before she would walk back to her village. She waited in my home having a chat with my mother. It was already striking 5'0 clock in the evening and it was getting dark as there was no sun. On days like this, it was a routine for some of the students to go along with her all the way by walk and come back once she reached her home safely. So five of the students along with me joined her for the walk today. She was hurrying so that it would not be too late for all of us to come back. The road we took was usually along the farms as it was shortcut. On either side of the roads were the tress and that made our way even darker. After a long gap of silence I interrupted "Teacher, the lake behind us and the trees on either side of the road makes it really scary right?" My teacher replied "Not really, why do you think so?" I responded "It's because of these trees on either side , our way has become even more darker and the sound of these frogs from the lake is really scary. If there were no trees here on the either side of the road, road would have been wider". Teacher Said "At the rate the humans are cutting the trees, a day would come when you will realize the value of trees. You should not be scary for the temporary darkness caused by these trees but you should be scared of the permanent darkness which is going to be caused by the absence of trees." Puzzled me asked " Teacher, what is that permanent darkness, how is it going to affect if there are no trees?". My teacher was always enthusiastic in answering our questions and I must say if I had practiced 50 percent of what she had taught us, I would have been even a better person than what I am today. She continued "It's the trees and the water bodies that keeps the environment stable. Trees help better rainfall every year and rain fall would help the agriculture. With better rainfall, the temperatures would be optimum and all of us will stay healthy."
I was reluctant enough to end our conversation so kept pleading her for more explanation "Teacher , tell us what is the after effect of cutting trees?" , teacher smiled at me and continued " See, we live in villages and hence the it takes time to understand how the trees are cut and used for human needs. Let me explain you like this. Now you are in fourth standard, later you would go to cities to pursue education and your career. Similarly like you, thousnads of students would go to cities for the same reason. The trees would be cut and used for building offices, homes and other modern infrastructure. And at the rate which trees are cut now, the number of trees would be too less to maintain the balance in the environment.
Water bodies get dried up and rainfall would be very less. As a result it affects the villages and hence the agriculture. With the inefficient agricultural practices due to shortage of water, people would lose interest in farming. Later everybody would move to urban areas thus creating a mess out of everything. Ecosystem is completely affected, people would start crying for water , this time not for farming but for drinking. One day with lack of agriculture and water human beings end up dying and then comes the extinction of human race." We had almost reached her home but something was bothering me so much that I still had questions to ask for her "Teacher, what can we do to stop this?". Teacher replied "Ok, everyone come inside. We will discuss over a cup of tea." We rushed inside her home. We had a sort of nice feeling going inside our teacher's home and having a cup of tea. She offered us some snacks along with tea and continued to speak "Dear children, only good thing you can do now is to plant as many trees as possible so that it would save your future and never encourage anyone to cut trees." After advising the word of good , she let us go home. In villages , children never walked the distances but would run wherever they wanted to go. We started and ended our run only once we reached our homes. After my fourth grade I joined another school and gradually forgot the words of my teacher. As everyone, I too came out to Bangalore for my engineering in the year 2005. I had found Bangalore very nice city to live in. Bangalore gave me a degree, a hell lot of friends, wonderful memories and a job to survive for the rest of my life. But there came the difference when I had to leave Bangalore to pursue my career. I started my professional career in Dubai soon after my engineering and I still remember how horrible the weather was. Usually the temperature used to be more than 40 degrees. It had rained only once in almost 450 days of my stay in Dubai. I was horribly missing Bangalore weather. I spent every minute under Air conditioners which I hated. I couldn't find regular rains, cool breeze and much more. I finally decided to come back to Bangalore and on the day I arrived back, the very first exciting thing to me was when our flight captain announced the weather update. He had announced "The temperature outside is 21°c."

Facebook status on day I arrived.
That was the first thing that excited me coming back to Bangalore. The city is known for its gardens and the weather. At times when the whole country used to burn of heat waves, it used to rain in Bangalore. We Bangaloreans used to boast of this to outsiders. But today Bangalore is burning at 40 degrees when the temperature at Chennai and Dubai is around 30 degrees. Karnataka and Maharashtra are facing the worst ever drought in last 40 years. And weather experts predict it is going to be even high in coming years.
Here comes the basic question? What led to this condition. Life is a full circle and the answer leads to where I started this write up. My teacher had predicted this condition twenty years back and had advised students like us to protect the ecosystem. I had completely forgot her words in this war of life. They say it is better late than never. So this year with all the due respect to my teacher, I am taking her words seriously and pledging to plant trees. Why should I pledge in a public forum ? Why not I do it silently? Yes, here is my answer. I alone cannot do much impact to this mission. I want people like you to be part of this mission and take responsibility in planting trees. There are so many organizations or groups which are actively doing this work from years. One of them I know is VrurkshaMitra group lead by some of my own friends. I have seen their work and the impact they have created. VrukshaMitra is a group of like minded people which organizes plantation activity every year. Everybody can create their own groups or individually can go back to your natives to plant as many number of trees as possible. I will try my best to be part of such groups from this year and would contribute in plantation activities. Here by I pledge to plant 20 trees this year. And I will try my best to pull out 10 friends of mine to do the same. I request you to pledge the number of trees in your own capacity. Why you must pledge? Pledging gives you an additional responsibility so that you will not miss out giving reasons. This rainy season, join me in planting trees so that after twenty years our children don't suffer the same that we are suffering now. Share this message to everyone in your list and pledge your number of trees. usually 200 members read up my article every time I publish and if all 200 people pledge ten trees at least the count would be 2000 trees. Just imagine how big impact its gonna create if we can plant and take care of two thousand trees. If we continue this tradition for years to come and the results would be tremendous. I know its easy to pledge and ask people to do but that's how we can start giving it back to the future generations. Nothing is impossible until and unless we stop criticizing any idea , criticizing others, criticizing government for everything but jump into action to create a better future.

PS: The teacher I mentioned is Mrs Mamatha Nagahanumaiah who was my teacher in government primary school, Singravuthanahalli.

Note:As Promised I planted more than 25 tress this year.