Book Box | Why I hug trees

A quarter of a century after Terry Pratchett wrote about such tree lifetimes in Reaper Man, botanist Peter Wohlleben explained the science in his beautifully articulated bestseller called The Hidden Life of Trees. It is a gem of a book, explaining how trees care for each other and the rhythms of their lives, covering everything from pollination to self-defence. Wohlleben spent years in the forests of Germany as a forest ranger. In his book, he refers to Suzanne Simard who lives halfway across the world from him, in British Columbia in Canada. Simard coined the ‘wood wide web’ for tree communication, she is also the author of the magnificent Finding The Mother Tree.

I know the mother tree. I pass one on my forest walk. Whenever I walk by this gigantic cedar tree, I take a quick look around to see if no one is looking. And then I step up the tree, rest my frame against it, and stretch my arms around its girth in a hug. Time stills. I feel an arboreal calmness communicate itself to my being. The rough feel of the bark against my skin, and the steadiness and strength in the tree’s torso soothe me.

There is another mother tree that calls to me. This one is not so large, but it has a history. The Pandavas, in their exile, stopped in this forest, says the Mahabharata. Here is where Bhima saw (the rakshas) Hidimba Devi and fell in love with her. Their son Ghatotkacha was one of the greatest warriors ever born, and this tree here, a walk away from our home, is the temple that is dedicated to this most amazing and most unfairly treated young hero.

When tourists come looking for the Ghatotkacha temple, they are surprised- ‘This tree is the temple?’ they clarify. But then soon enough, they are standing before the tree, folding their hands to it, inhaling the smell of the agarbati that wafts up in the clear cool mountain air, and ringing the large brass bell that echoes through the forest.

It is hard not to care for trees like these. Sometimes as I walk in the forest I see a tree that has been uprooted, its great roots laid low.

One day, I pass a village and see another such tree, its gigantic roots unearthed. I think of the poet Gieve Patel. It takes much time to kill a tree, he says.

“ The root is to be pulled out –

Out of the anchoring earth”

The fallen tree before me is being sectioned off into wooden sleepers that will form a house or hotel. The cosy wooden cabins, the kathkuni local homes and the family home my grandparents built were all built from trees in the forests around us.

Yet it is conflicting when entire forests disappear. Like in the novel The Forest Beneath the Mountains, where the son of a forest officer returns to Assam, to find the forests of his youth have disappeared. His investigation among the insurgents, elephant catchers and army contractors is a slow-burn sketch of the simmering forces that lie below such situations.

When I am far away from the forest, I pick up a book that takes me back. There’s Aranyak by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay about a young man who gets a job as an estate manager in Bihar and slowly falls in love with the forest around him. Another beautiful book is set in a forest in Japan and called The Easy Life in Kamusari. It’s about a young man in Japan who is so irresponsible, he is banished by his family to the forest. It’s hard, but he learns to survive; to live simply, to work hard and most importantly to believe in the spirits of the trees.

Such spirits are real. I read about the intelligent life of trees in The Mother Tree, in The Hidden Life of Trees and Lab Girl, the memoir by the Dutch botanist Hope Jahren. And also in the beautifully written Braiding Sweetgrass.

I think I have known about the secret lives of trees all along - from a book I read early in life where a forest full of trees whispers ‘wisha, wisha, wisha’ in The Magic Faraway Tree. Most of all, I feel the spirit of the trees when I hug a tree, and when I touch a mother tree.

What about you dear Reader? What is your favourite tree and what are your favourite books about trees? Do write in with recommendations.

And until next week, happy reading.

Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at [email protected]

The views expressed are personal