Reminisces - My Father and the Peepal Tree Across the Road

"Sometimes the most enduring legacies are not the monuments we build, but lives we quietly nurture"

It had rained the previous evening, bringing the temperature down to a more tolerable level and allowing a refreshing night’s sleep without the air conditioner. Early the next morning, cup of tea in hand, I stepped onto the driveway of my parent’s home. The air was cool, the foliage freshly washed, and the neighbourhood was just about waking up to nature’s morning chorus that was in full swing.

The neighbourhood is full of green trees and flowering shrubs. My parents home front yard hosted a guava tree and flowering shrubs, while the backyard had a pomegranate, guava, and a lemon tree. Across the road lies a neighbourhood park dotted with trees and shrubs that have matured over the decades and so had every front and back yard in the area. This is what hosted the wide variety of birds; the noisy babblers, mynas strutting about with their usual confidence, pigeons cooing from the rooftops, and somewhere above all of this was a male koyal (cuckoo) that announced its presence with its very pleasant sound, to me, of coo, coo, cooing.

A Representative Image: Peepal Tree with a Beehive

Image Courtsey: Google Images.

The Koyal was perched on a large Peepal tree directly opposite our home. One of its upper branches carried a massive beehive that was alive with ceaseless activity of honeybees. Watching them, I was reminded of how much of life on this planet depends on these tiny creatures quietly going about their work of pollination. Their labour is monotonous, unnoticed and yet indispensable to life on our planet.

After breakfast, I accompanied my father on his morning walk. At ninety-one, he still manages without a walking stick, though age has understandably slowed his stride. The sky remained overcast and a gentle breeze made the morning especially pleasant. Once his walk was over, we sat together in the driveway, observing the neighbourhood come alive. A few women walked briskly around the park’s track. Children would arrive later to claim the swings and slides installed by the municipality. Benches lined the pathways, inviting the elderly to pause and exchange stories.

Looking at the park today, it is difficult to imagine how it appeared when my parents moved into the area in the early 1980s. Back then, it was little more than an open rectangular space with a few saplings planted around its edges. The roads were wider, the surroundings uncluttered and there was a sense of openness that has largely disappeared now. Today, every available space seems occupied by vehicles and assorted possessions, trees and shrubs missing from most front yards and spaces concreted. We rarely pause to consider the consequences until a crisis arises, and then we are quick to blame the authorities for what often began as our own collective selfishness, or pure neglect. Every fire event reminds us of this shortcoming on our part, collectively.

As we sat there, my eyes returned to the Peepal tree. For my father, it is much more than a tree.

Soon after moving into the neighbourhood, he noticed a tiny Peepal sapling growing on the edge of the park, directly opposite our home. He took it upon himself to nurture it. For nearly three years he watered it regularly, protected it from damage and watched over it until it became strong enough to survive on its own.

Thereafter, his role changed from caretaker to admirer. Every time I visited home, he would point to the tree with unmistakable pride and recount its story. Over the decades, that sapling has grown into a magnificent tree that now shelters birds, bees and countless other forms of life. Beneath its shade, weary walkers rest on a bench. Domestic workers pause for lunch during the hot summer months. Children gather around it, and passers-by instinctively seek refuge under its generous canopy.

The tree stands as a quiet reminder of how a small act of care can ripple outward across time. My father never planted it expecting recognition. Yet the benefits of that simple act continue to be enjoyed by hundreds of people and innumerable living creatures.

Nature constantly works to sustain life. Trees provide shade, birds disperse seeds, bees pollinate flowers and ecosystems quietly maintain balances that we often take for granted. Human beings, uniquely endowed with the ability to reflect before acting, possess the capacity either to support these processes or to undermine them.

The Peepal tree across the road reminds me that our smallest actions can have consequences far beyond our immediate sight. Before every action, perhaps the most important question we should ask ourselves is simple: Have we thought about its consequences?