TURNING A NEW LEAF

Since the turn of the century, we have lost hundreds of thousands of trees. Many had stood for centuries, weathering storms, wars, droughts and famines.

- Bijoy Venugopal

They paid the price for standing in the way of eight-lane highways, metro rail lines and SEZs. In atonement, we have supplanted their memory with nameless clones in landscaped hedgerows.

A tree sprouts from a minuscule seed that lies dormant in the soil until the conditions are right for it to seek the sky. It lays claim to a parcel of earth and weathers the vagaries of time, in the process testing destiny and often writing it.