Dilip Chitre’s “The Felling of The Banyan Tree”

Dilip Chitre's “The Felling of The Banyan Tree” (An Appreciation)

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

“The Felling of The Banyan Tree,” by Dilip Chitre, is a poem of the cutting of a centuries old mythical banyan tree, shifting from Baroda to Bombay, leaving behind the memories and remembrances connected with the old paternal ancestral house where he grew up and passed his days even though the scenes and sights appeared to be more familiar and related to personally.

Soon after the decision the site gets cleared off bearing the brunt of destruction and devastation, wiping out the familiar images. The poet through this poem indirectly talks about the clearing of forests, changing ecology and environment while on the other rampant urbanization, concretisation and the mad craze for job and employment. What are we doing after all? Where are we going to? None thinks about, none cares for. Mythically, we take it the banyan tree connected with Savitri and Satyavan and the peepul tree with Goutam Buddha. But without referring to, the poet says to that the cutting of the green trees does not go in our favour as they are good for many purposes and are connected with our life and existence. Trees shade us from heat and direct sun rays falling on and oxygen as well as fruits to eat. It takes time in growing, but to cut it is so easy.

If seen from a different angle, it is an eco-centric poem predicting environmental hazards and green house effects and their bearing upon man.

The father of the poet orders the tenants of the rented houses on fare to vacate them as for the structures to be demolished and the land to be cleared forth and thereafter the woodcutters start cutting the trees and clearing the landscape, the spot, but to clear it all of a sudden not so easy as it takes time in establishing something and so the time in deserting it. To create something is difficult but to destroy is easier than. The cutters start cutting the trees one by one and the labourers working upon to demolish the structures one by one. Even going against the words of the grandmother that the trees are sacred, do not cut them as has been said by the patriarchs and saints alike, the sheoga, the oudumber and the neem trees are felled. But the huge banyan tree stands still just like a problem whose roots deeper than our life. Even after being unmindful of all that, the trees are massacred. The sole remnant house too tumbles and goes away crumbling and crashing down.

The banyan tree is three times bigger than the house, so huge, tall, mighty and sturdy with the scraggy aerial roots hanging all around, shady and bird-nested. With a fifty feet circumference trunk, the banyan is not so easy to tumble it down. The cutters first start cutting the branches and the twigs from the thirty feet above canopy. With the stroke of the axe, the chopper falling, birds start leaving the nests in wonder and astonishment as for being dismantled soon with so much hullabaloo and commotion and pandemonium. Clearing and cutting the branches and aerial roots, they begin sawing them and the place turns into a heap of the logs giving a peculiar look as the landscape takes a queer turn, wearing a strange look, difficult to be recognized and to be familiar with.

Finally, they come down to the trunk, the bust to clear forth and take time in chopping it, striking at the root to cut into, crack and tumble it down. Some fifty men are engaged in doing it. The great tree some two hundred years old with the rings within the circumference lies it fallen, saying it all about this waste land of ours, arid and sterile, modern landscape and scenery bereft of greenery and vegetation. The poet together with others see the slaughter and desertion and feel the plight in horror spellbound and speechlessly what it has taken place, what it has befallen. Soon afterwards they pack up the things and leave for Bombay for better prospects where there are but skyscrapers and congested flats, where there trees are not, where the spring comes it not with flowers, where man remains concerned only with jobs mechanically.