“We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and they have a perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose-even for transforming the murderers into the judges….
…We shall know nothing until we know whether we have the right to kill our fellow men or the right to let them be killed. In that every action today leads to murder, direct or indirect we cannot act until we know whether or why we have the right to kill”
– Extracts from Albert Camus’s The Rebel
How about replacing the word ” fellow men” in the extract with that of fellow “trees.” Yes, the facebooking account is rocking and before one shuts down for that one last time. My final profile picture is that of a tree.
What would a tree mean to me? Just a woody plant? Just a glorious or an emaciated trunk…just the formation of shrub…or the identity of a foliage. Or is it just a socio-environmental fashion fad?
Between ecosystems and mythology, between foliage and human folly, between traditions and apocalypse, a tree is an assertion of both culture and carbon dioxide, both at the same time.
So what would be the world without the trees. Who would shed tears for them,when they disappear?
Would the last human being take up the task of writing a journal and look back at his wanton act of destruction and write an elegy. Will the elegy read like this:
I’m the last drop
in the last ocean
I’m the last tear drop of water
that fell from the last branch
I’m the last tree
that your uprooted for one last time
I’m the last tribal
standing on the last island
I’m the last aboriginal
I’m the last sentinel
screaming and screeching out
the last shout inside the last void
I’m the last ocean
eking out the last wave
I’m the last tree
that your axe felled for one last time
I’m the last electric pole
that illuminated the last front
At different rainforests, eco-reserves…
I’m the last sigh
that died the last death
I’m the last exult
that celebrated the last macabre
I’m the last tree crying for one last time
I’m the last village
submerged by the last remaining river
I’m the last city
drowned by the last sea
I’m the last seagull
gasping for the last breath
I’m the last fisherman
lusting for the last fish
I am the last tree that died one last time
I’m the last gaze
that looked at the last destruction
I’m the last vein
that stopped the blood one last time
I’m the last severed hand
that got stuck in the last electric wire
I’m the last elderly infirm
who saw their families washed away
I’m the last onrushing wave
that devoured the last infant
using fury as my sauce
and ferocity , my garnishing
I’m the last character who took the last line
I’m the last character who took the last gasp
in this theatre called life
All that remained were headless body, floating heads, fractured
families, stray fingers, lost kidneys, opaque retinas;
islands dotted with dead trees
I’m the last tree..taking time to die my last death
I’m the last tear drop
that fell from the last eye
I’m the last wound
that rotted due to the last flea
I’m the last volcano
that burped out the last lava
I’m the last ember
that came out from the last flame
I’m the last blue
as the dying candle finally dies
I’m the last wave that hit the last shore
I’m the last tsunami that hit your kitchen
I’m the last genocide that underlines your abject failure to remain at peace
I’m that benevolent killer wave
that rips open your consciousness
I’m that rising mass of water
that cleanses your land
I’m the death that does not die, I’m oblivion that is immortal
I’m transient but permanent
I’m the last tree
that never enters your art practice..
that does not affect your performance…
that makes you pretend so much when you have given so little…
I am indeed the last tree..fading away one last time
I’m the pebbles that lay strewn on the floor
I’m the crossword that you left unfinished
I’m the poem you wrote on the sand
that the water took
I’m the hope in your matchbox
that never ignited
I’m just the drop
That keeps falling
Now
Always
Then
Immediately
Infinitely
I am the dead tree
The last remains of an industrial filth
So, when the American Indian Chief Seattle writes to President Franklin Pierce in 1854 that: Chief Seattle (American India) wrote to President Franklin Pierce (1854):
“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man…”
I am not surprised by the tribal wisdom. I am chastened by it. I am wisened by the native American wisdom (Cree Indian proverb) that “Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money”
What would then be a tree? A repository of wisdom. Understanding the ecological balance. The last fortress for an alternative food chain. A resource of infinite air. And a home that encompasses the worldview of liberal thoughts. In such times of coolness, the tree is the last reminder of the silent giving out without any apparent, short term or long term returns. In such dystopic times..it is still the necessary and sadly, the last remaining reminder of that fragile almost-non-existent utopia.
Yes, Mr Salman Khan, the black buck has been killed. Yes. Chandi Prasad Bhatt has been forgotten by syllabus makers… except for some clever anthropologist or sociologists in their essay…we needed (and need) a Chipko that spreads like wildfire… and surely more Chandi Prasad Bhatts in our midst..
So, my last profile picture would be hands outstretched..face wrapped up in plastic…and I am mimicking the object that I helped (aided could be a better word )to kill the most (..most at least in terms of numbers) through a planned industrial(or shall we say personal) genocide.
