If Trees Could Speak
J.C. Bose, the great Indian scientist, has proved that trees have life as do animals and humans. They feel and react but have no language or tongue to express their feelings. Only if they had the power of speech, they would express themselves in much the same way as we do. Leaves would say how they hate winter that heralds their impending death.
Tree trunks would boast to one another of their advanced age and experience. Fruits would tell stories about their childhood. Branches would talk about the visits they have had from their insect, bird, and animal friends. The spring would have sweet songs of welcome from them.
The trees would also tell us things that would shock us. They would say ‘ouch’, if the leaves on their branches were pricked. They would be found screaming with pain if we were cruel enough to break their twigs or branches.
Their flowers would cry piteously when they were plucked off and so would every leaf on each tree if smoke from a nearby chemical factory were to blow continuously across it. There is no doubt that after being blessed with the power of speech, the trees would talk of the joys of summer and the thrill they feel as the cool breeze blows through them.
They would speak of the wonder of being alive and the multiple uses they provide to all living creatures, including men and women; birds and animals. They would be too generous to boast of their utility to living beings. But most of all, trees would complain about their bitter enemy-man.
“Isn’t he involved in the countless murders of our kith and kin?” they would angrily complain. They would discuss disdainfully his thoughtlessness in cutting them down so that he might build houses for himself They would never forgive him for refusing to treat them with due consideration and regard.
Even if trees cannot speak, their agony and bitterness have been forcefully expressed by a number of poets and environmentalists. Scientists have repeatedly told us what their needs are, what their usefulness is, and how animate they are.
It is for us to give the trees their due and by saving them save the very survival of the earth. If trees are gone, our Mother Planet would not have any trace of life whatsoever.
