Keya Sarkar: Dealing with dead wood

As Jairam Ramesh fights to save our forests, he can be rest assured that his colleagues in the forest department are fighting to save each tree.

The house I inherited in Santiniketan was built at least 60 years ago and all the trees in its garden were planted at that time. I don’t know whether it is because of pests or age, but we have lost quite a few trees ever since I moved into the house about eight years ago. But most of the trees we lost were not very large and we managed to cut their branches in the garden to use as firewood — they weren’t really useful for anything else.

 

Recently, a large jackfruit tree in our garden died. Since its trunk and branches were thick we thought it would be sinful to chop it for firewood when it could easily be used for furniture. And that’s when the fun began.

We were informed that if we got people to take the tree down, we would not be allowed to get the wood out of our gates without the permission of the forest department. Being law-abiding and God-fearing citizens, we did not even consider any other means and went straight to the forest department to find out the due process. There we were handed a five-page form that needed to be filled and sent to the Visva Bharati University (because the area we live in falls within the university’s jurisdiction) for a no-objection certificate. We were told once we have the approval of the university, the form would be sent to the forest officer stationed in Santiniketan and then to the district headquarter at Suri for the final permission.

Considering my partner’s application for renewing his driving licence has been lying in Suri for over a year, we didn’t really hope for a quick response. My passport-renewal application, too, has been lying with the Suri police department for over a month (apparently because of the impending elections not much paper is moving between the Suri and Santiniketan police stations).

Meanwhile, we got down to filling the form. It required us to list the number of trees we had in our garden. I counted about 21 trees and wondered if I should include large shrubs, banana trees and the thin reed-like papaya trees. There was no annexure with the form to guide us.

We were also required to mention how many more trees we plan to plant in the future without any given timeframe. Since I didn’t know whether I should put down the number of trees we would plant this monsoon, the next one or over generations (I do not have children so at least that dilemma was taken care of), I gave full rein to my imagination. I listed all the trees that I would ever want to plant, even though I knew there wasn’t any space in my garden.

We also had to attach a photograph of the dead tree as documentary evidence. Anyway, we finished filling the form and submitted it to the university office for the no-objection certificate. But it seems the university has far greater priorities than worrying about my dead tree. Now, all our mornings and evenings are spent on trips to the university’s estate department in the hope of catching the officer meant to sign the papers. Then of course we shall have to do the same with the forest officer.

And once it goes to Suri we will obviously have to wait for the elections to be over. By then a few more trees in my garden might be dead. Missing the wood for the trees, did we say?