A mango tree in our backyard has become, for me, a symbol of our "green-tape" bureaucracy, born of green activism. In the past three years that we have lived here, I have not seen flowers nor fruit on this tree. It provides shade where we don't need it, but little else. Don't mistake me, I love the abundant greenery in central Delhi, where we are lucky enough to be able to live for a while, and we have added to it as best we could in our garden. But this tree ...
Almost six months ago, the CPWD junior engineer came and asked if we wanted to have a room added to our flat. Who doesn't need another room, so I promptly said "yes, please, when can you start and how long will it take". Ah, but first you will have to get this mango tree cut, as it is getting in the way. Won't your workmen take care of that? Oh, no, you will have to ask the CPWD horticulture division, we are only the civil engineers who hire the contractors who build the room!
After some more questioning, the junior engineer agrees that the whole tree may not need to be cut, but just the main branch that is leaning towards where one wall of the new room will be built. So, after several phone calls, the horticulture man arrives. In my naivety, I thought we have control of what is planted in our yard, and thus also control of what is removed. Oh no, anything that is more than two fingers' thickness (or did he say one?), needs permission - even pruning a branch. Please write an application addressed to the Director Horticulture. But you do realize that cutting this branch will kill the tree? If so, so be it. RIP.
Promptly, an application is typed, signed, sealed and delivered. And I wait patiently for a few weeks. Meanwhile, an assistant engineer (boss of the junior engineer) arrives to survey the site. Maybe the contractor is idle, and that explains the renewed interest in building the room. Oh no, he said, cutting the branch won't be enough, the whole tree will have to go from the roots! So why don't you coordinate with your brethren in the horticulture division to remove the tree? Yes, we will write a letter, as there are several other flats similarly affected. Aha, I thought, strength in numbers ...
More waiting. More phone calls to ask about progress. More assurances of letters having been written to take up the matter ... Meanwhile, the horticulture man sends a copy of a letter they have, in turn, written to the Delhi Government, asking for permission to cut the branch per our original application. More phone calls to the assistant engineer ... can't you modify your design to save the tree, if it is such a cumbersome process to get a tree cut in one's own backyard (never mind the hundreds and thousands that were cut to make way for the bus corridor in south delhi ... but that is another story!). We will examine that. I will talk to my executive engineer ... who apparently comes to inspect the site also, one day when I am not home. Lo and behold, another day when I am not home, the horticulture people come and cut off the main branch of the tree, as originally requested.
More waiting. The tree thrives even without its main branch. The neem tree in front of our house collapses in a storm, but the mango tree refuses to die. More phone calls. No, the design can't be modified. The tree will have to go! So take it away ... We have written a letter. How about making a phone call? We have taken up the matter with concerned authorities. Presumably the guardians of the Forest Act in the GNCTD (new acronym added to my vocabulary - government of the national capital territory of delhi)? Government of the trees, by the trees, for the trees?
Who cares? The tree is still there, I am tired of making phone calls, the engineers will come back when the contractors are idle again. Some day, in somebody's lifetime, a room will be added - if the whole structure hasn't crumbled by then! Meanwhile, taking advantage of the abundant rains, our gardener has planted a lemon tree in the backyard, and three shade trees just outside, but is anyone counting those in exchange for a fruitless mango tree?
Green tapism zindabad!
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As always, penny wise and pound foolish, the powers that be. Note the hundreds of trees that have been cut down to widen the roads and make way for the snazzy new flyovers in South Delhi, to extend the runways at Palam, the thousands of wild creatures that have lost their homes, their habitat. Once, Delhi was a green city, with tracts of virgin forest, cool, undisturbed, beautiful. Today it is a city under construction, the construction being carried out with complete disregard to the environment, and all in the name of development and progress.
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