The death of a tree

I live in a house with a bamboo clump. The clump is rather large, with strong yellow stems that reach out high. Those who have stayed close to the bamboo, will know that they seem to carry innumerable secrets. Strange actually, because the stems are not bound together, the leaves small, you might actually think that no bird could make its nest there. But then the bamboo surprises you, not because birds actually do build their nests in them, but because of the language the bamboo speaks. It is hushed, like a soft secret, that only you were meant to know. Many are the nights I have spent listening to the yellow bamboo speak to me. Like when they thought the Geisha from the neighbour's curtains actually step out and walk around, like when the neighbourhood child with asthma cries in her sleep, the bamboo knows it all. For someone like me who has been cradled in the shade of two Thuja trees, for all of her childhood, plants and their love is permanent. 

So with great trepidation I notice one morning, like the sudden arrival of rain, insects. Millions of them, take over my bamboo. The bamboo resists them, as do I. We fight our own battles, in different ways. For the first time, I see the strength of the hushed bamboo. It grows wild and almost in every direction, spreads roots like fire trying to out grow beyond the inevitable oncoming of the thousands more. I'm reminded of the carnivorous plant in Satyajit Ray's story, the tree that makes a racket, has a temper of its own and is fierce. But the insects are persistent, they grow in numbers, you kill some thousands, the next day a thousand more occupy their place, quiet, resilient and seemingly perennial in their attack. Yesterday I burnt my bamboo tree. Raised it from the ground and burnt it. It is like amputating your own feet, not letting the gangrene take over. There is not an insect left, I have rid the tree of them finally and the pain that they brought to it.

All night their absent hush disturbed me, I wondered if the ghost of the bamboo had returned. I had burnt a bit of myself with the bamboo too. But nature is like a miracle, there is sudden rain at night and in the morning from some unseen corner a small surviving bamboo shoot shows its head. Happiness is sometimes in a single green leaf.