The Trees of My Country: A journey through India's roots and branches

Evoking feelings of awe and wonder, this book on trees is a treat for those who have an interest in nature as well as those who do not care about the planet at all

The Trees of My Country: A Natural History of India in 50 Trees

by T R Shankar Raman

Published by Aleph

283 pages ₹1,499

  If you have any interest in nature, in trees, in the environment, in the planet, then this is a book for you. And if you have no interest in nature, in trees, in the environment, in the planet, then this is definitely the book for you. If you want a few shades of patriotism and nationalistic fervour thrown in, then this is also the book for you, but perhaps not in a way that you might imagine.

 

This book is almost like a love story about India’s diverse and fascinating trees, landscape, countryside, forests, neighbourhoods, villages, plantations, grasslands, coasts, mountains and deserts. T R Shankar Raman is a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation. But he writes not just as a scientist but as a poet, a lover and maybe even a wishful thinker. The book tells the stories of 50 trees, and you might be tempted to start wherever the book falls open. I would recommend that you begin at the beginning; not just because I prefer the linear method of reading. There is a continuity here. Mr Raman starts with trees of place — sthal vruksha. The book is called The Trees of My Country and each tree has its place and its special nature. The first tree is one that is known to most of us, Bombax Ceiba, the Semal, the silk cotton tree. Its red flowers ignite dull winter into spring.

 

Mr Raman’s Semal is the Ilavu in Tamil Nadu. As he describes the birds that visit the tree, and its worth and meaning to the local people, his mind jumps to a majestic Semal in Delhi’s Teen Murti. This is a book that covers India in a unique and fascinating manner. So, while you learn a tree’s botanical name and properties, you also get a sense of local customs and beliefs. Tree number 50, though it is not the last tree in the book, is Tsuga Dumosa, or Aeto-Bo, perhaps not so familiar to all readers. In the author’s words: “I’ve travelled across the length of India to this far corner of Arunachal Pradesh, in search of one remarkable conifer. My companions… were indigenous Idu Mishmis from Dibang Valley. What looked like trackless forests and unpeopled ranges to me was, to them, an intimately known domain of belonging, meaning, and attachment, which they travelled on foot, told stories of, and sang about in shamanic chants.”

 

It is, thus, many worlds that we traverse through these 50 trees. Like Sterculia urens, the “ghost tree” of Ajanta, known as Karu in Marathi. With its white bark and twisted branches, it could be a dancer around those ancient caves in North Maharashtra, where it grows on cliffs and among rocks. Mr Raman is at his most poetic when he is in his comfort zone of the Nilgiris, the Western Ghats and South India. The Cullenia Exarillata, the old Vedipla of Old Valparai, its prickly green fruits loved by macaques, its seeds sometimes eaten by the Kadar tribal people. As he describes the tree, you meet the birds and other animals that frequent it.

 

For India’s favourite fruit tree, the great Mangifera Indica, he writes not about the much-coveted and fought over varieties we all know and love, but his taste of a wild mango in the rainforests of the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve. The small fibrous wild mango is best had in a kaadu mange curry.

 

One could endlessly, or rather 50-odd times, mention all the trees described here, all evoking feelings of awe and wonder. But what The Trees of My Country ought to do is open your eyes to the fragility of ecosystems when faced with human greed and callousness. Hitherto strong systems, bound together by roots and fruits and climate and soil and changing topographies and ancient geological lineages are helpless when the bulldozer comes calling. The pain that Mr Raman feels in the rampant environmental destruction around us should resonate with all of us. We have lost what we cannot get back, and we have created all sorts of dichotomies as a result. Nature reserves, for instance, take away from ancient people the land on which they roamed free and with which they have symbiotic relationships. It is not only wild life, you discover, that needs protection from “infrastructure”-led growth.

 

Mr Raman’s choice of trees also awakens us to the flaws in the notion that pure indigenous tree species are superior to all others.  While some invasive foreign species have undoubtedly caused untold damage to native ecology, there have different kinds of imports as well, brought by shifting tectonic plates, by birds, by accidents. Some of these we have embraced. S Natesh’s marvellous Iconic Trees of India — referenced several times by Mr Raman — also underlines the glory of some trees that have travelled to India.

 

The beautiful illustrations by Manali Patil add extra magic to each tree, the careful attention to detail of fruit and leaf matched by the wistful depiction of the complete tree. You realise how many of these beauties you have missed as you whiz through countryside without stopping. How many birds and animals live and dance and thrive.

 

Interestingly, Mr Raman ends with the tree that many might have expected to be front and centre — the epilogue concentrates on the mighty Peepul, tree number 51. The end of the book also has the scientific information you night need, from taxonomy and names to suggestions on other books on trees and notes that lead you to his references. The map at the end is perfect, as it marks each tree in place. Taking us back to where we started.

   

The reviewer is an independent journalist