Redundant

The big "ashwattha" tree (or "peepal" tree, as it is popularly known in some regions) in front of my house used to carry a cauldron of intense emotions during my childhood. I saw the tree growing up with me. The big trunk of it symbolized immense strength - the strength with which Mother Nature sustains the weight of human lives on this earth. The hundreds of branches of that tree used to provide shelter to many birds and animals, big and small, beautiful and regular. More often than not, I used to feel fascinated by its multifaceted psyche. It knew how to utilize its full potential to combat the worst kind of storm keeping its stem unbent. Nevertheless, it also knew how to make its leaves dance gleefully along with the breeze to keep its surrounding calm and cool.

When I was young and loved exploring, I used to peep through our window to look at the branches of the tree searching for the colourful birds, both known and unknown. My holidays were a series of adventure in an inane attempt to capture the snaps of cute squirrels residing in the tree. Every Sunday, I used to grab my camera and move stealthily around the tree hoping to catch them unaware, but those small creatures always used to outshine me by their wit. Those birds and those squirrels residing in the tree used to give me company because most of the time, I stayed alone in my home. One day, a terrible cyclone named 'Aila' created havoc in the city, taking a toll of almost hundred human lives, uprooting thousands of trees and devastating numerous major properties. I sat behind my window, and saw through its transparent pane that the tree, like a huge monster, was fighting the cyclone with all its might. Despite the brutal blows of the cruel wind, the tree fought hard to keep its roots buried in the soil. The next morning when everything became quiet, I opened the window and found the tree wounded. It entirely lost its foliage and some of its branches were also broken, but its stem was still standing strong with a triumphant stance. I did not tell anyone but I cried secretly since there was no bird or squirrel left to accompany me when I stayed alone in home. The tree did not give me the reason to stay morose for long. It healed its branches by the next spring, so much so, some of its branches became pendulous with the weight of newly suffused green leaves. I was overjoyed to see the nestled birds returning to their homes happily as the tree was recovering. I grew up some more and started attending office. Engulfed by the daily mundanities of life, the thought of tree literally took a back seat. My laptop with the Internet connection replaced the role of birds and squirrels in my life, as it gradually became my new companion. I was still getting regular news of new birds coming to the tree, just by listening to the nuances of new chirping and detecting the difference in their pitch and frequency. Few weeks back, on an inauspicious day, I came home late and went to sit by the side of window. On gazing outside, I was at my wit's end to see a sudden barrenness in the landscape strewn with ugly concrete structures and asymmetrical houses, small and big, shabby and gaudy. There was no tree in the vicinity. Not a solitary vestige of anything green was there to enliven the barrenness of that ugly landscape visible through my window. That ugliness made the tears prick my eyes. I went out to see what actually happened, and when I came closer, I was shattered to see my beloved tree being chopped off till almost its root. Perhaps, those people were planning to erect a shop or a temple there. I felt helpless for not being able to save my pal. I'm not quite sure if I were present on the spot, whether I could stand up against those butchers or not… but at least I could try. By each strike of the axe on the tree for further killing it, my desperation to suppress my outrage kept on soaring high. That night, I was told that the cutting-off had been done after a formal permission acquired from the local municipality. People of our locality claimed that the tree was redundant, since it was just encroaching the space on the pavement without serving any purpose. The word 'redundant' pained my ears; insensitive as it was, it almost felt like that particular word was piercing the membrane over my heart. On the very next morning, I saw some people enthusiastically putting up bamboos and other construction materials to build a new structure. I started losing figments of my childhood one by one, with each nail being hammered into those bamboos. Yesterday morning, when I turned the pages of the newspaper, I threw a quick glance at a headline "Top 7 IT firms including Infosys and Wipro has laid off 56000 employees this year". I went through the news, scrutinizing the whole content word by word, to get the reason of their retrenchment. One phrase was clearly visible in front of my eyes, and that phrase was "all of those retrenched employees were redundant". Their contribution of blood, sweat and crappy bundle of codes brought no fruit to those organizations, just like the tree's subtle non-materialistic contributions could not bring any difference in my neighbours' eyes. Today, I've just come to know that two guys staying next to our house have been the victims of Wipro's layoff exercise. I chuckled. The tree did not take much time to cast its spell of magic to make my neighbours understand the true essence of the word "Redundant"!