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THE GRAND OLD TREE

 THE GRAND OLD TREE

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

26/VIII/2022

 

            Once there was a very fertile land. People were simple though diverse, but all stayed together as a huge family. There were differences but then to keep their land one, they all united.

 

One day a foreign weed intruded their land and started engulfing everything which came in its way. Still, they were resilient. Their strength was their unity in diversity.

 

            Then a tree which could consume this foreign weed sprouted. It started growing and spreading its branches. Birds and animals started flocking to it. They were attracted to its shade and fragrant flowers. The word spread in the jungle like wildfire to support this plant.

 

Though it hardly bore any fruits, as all the nutrition was sucked out by this weed. Even if fruits came, they could not suffice for all. However, they were emotionally attached to this new tree. Hunger, famine, floods, and drought took its toll but this tree grew deep roots and lived on.

 

            Finally, the only traces of that remaining weed perished. The jungle celebrated. However, before this weed went off, it left a seed on the side of this tree. That seed grew up to be a naughty plant. It was offensive and encroached on the big tree, hurting it time and again.

 

This new transplant got infected by a deadly disease. It kept oozing with contagion and could not prosper like the huge tree in the vicinity. Big tree stood tall, proudly, and majestically and bore the brunt of its onslaught many a times.

 

 Then came a time when someone almost chopped off the crown of the big tree. The hurt was felt and the loss was obvious, but the tree lived on, still giving shade, firewood, fruits, and oxygen to all. Life went on.

 

This grand tree now became huge and unwieldy. Another tree kept thinking of taking its place one day. Slowly and steadily the other tree started growing. Then one fine day someone axed the grand old tree. It fell but did not die. The new tree started to grow bigger by the day and subsumed the big old tree.

 

Birds and animals which used to flock under the grand old tree, now found refuge under the new one. As ‘nature of nature’ goes, people understood that now the grand old tree cannot provide for them, so they shifted abode under this new one.

 

A kind of internal rot hit the grand old tree. Experts introspected, solutions and ways of dealing with the disease were found.  A thorough treatment was also suggested for its revival. To be safe, it was suggested that the shoots from the main tree be allowed to replace the oldie. All suggestions fell to deaf ears. The writing was on the wall, the cancer was growing and killing it.

 

The branches twisted due to disease, leaves got infected, fruits got deformed. Branches started falling off. This tree went from weak, to weaker to weakest. Still, they did not start the treatment. The new tree was watching closely, waiting for the oldie to die.

 

The old tree started to wither and weaken. New tree ignored its existence. If an opportunity came, it attacked the old tree with all its might, not letting it grow. In fact, it took some of its branches into its fold. Those branches which were choked in the vitiated atmosphere of the old tree, found new life.

 

Will the ‘Grand Old Tree’ survive? I wonder!!!!!!!!

 

Disclaimer: This story has no semblance to the journey of the ‘Grand old Party’ and its downfall. If it has, it is coincidental.

 

 

JAI HIND

© NOEL ELLIS

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