 |
| Moloy: The Forest Man |
When I saw the
animated short film ‘The Man Who
Planted Trees’ a year back, I liked the film for its minimalistic
pastel-sketching look (so minimal that you can see the lines and curves forming
the pictures) and needless to say, the profound idea, so simple in its
conception yet utterly jaw-dropping for anyone who pauses to consider undertaking
it. The man I praise now has I am sure, never seen this film or heard of its
protagonist, Elzéard Bouffier but what he has done and is still doing, may be
the subject of a film named ‘The Man Who Planted Trees - II’; only this film
would not be fiction but the biography of a real-living person.
The film based upon a short story, is about Bouffier, a
solitary shepherd who over the course of 40 years, plants trees of all kinds,
and brings back prosperity and a reason for living to an entire tract of
desolate region in the French Alps. The man I am basing this piece on, is a
simple villager named Jadav Payeng, who over the course of almost 3 decades has
brought back greenery and life to a barren stretch of land in Assam. Whereas the
achievement ascribed to Bouffier was just fiction, what Payeng has
achieved exists very much for anyone to see.
A particular geographical feature of the Brahmaputra Valley
in Assam is the sandbar, a tract of land of river sand which gets created
whenever the water level of the river goes down in winter. Short grasses grow
in these barren, exposed bits of land till the time monsoon steps in again and
the river reclaims what once belonged to him. Once in a while, the river may
change its course slightly and leave behind sandbars which are not reclaimed.
The hero of this piece, Payeng (affectionately called ‘Moloy’) singled out one
such sandbar 3 decades back and started planting bamboo trees in the barren
land. He planted the trees by himself on land which was not his (it belongs to
the Forest Deptt.) using his hands and maybe, a shovel. He nurtured the tender
plants (on land which as the authorities
informed him, was barren and not suitable for growing anything except bamboo),
and the first forest sprang up - a bamboo thicket.
I suppose it was at this point (the first tentative success)
that Moloy must have thought of having a full-fledged forest with different
trees and animals in it as well. So, he extended the purview of his vision,
planted seeds of different trees this time around, transported red ants into
his forest (as someone informed him, red
ants positively affect the acidic properties of the soil) getting stung by
them, stood guard over the first saplings as they grew up, and his
single-minded passion has now resulted in a man-made forest cover stretching
over nearly a 1000 hectares which animals like elephants, tigers, deer, rhinos
and others like snakes, different birds have made their home. His efforts
have been recognised by the authorities who have started aiding him now, and
what he has accomplished is slowly becoming known to people. The Chief Minister
of Assam has bestowed Moloy with the well-earned moniker ‘The Forest Man’ and the Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) has honoured him on this year’s 'Earth Day'.
It was in Feb this year that I got an opportunity to see a
short programme where Moloy was being interviewed in the midst of his forest. I
remember being stuck by a few points about this person and I shall attempt to
present these here to drive home the enormity of what he had undertaken and
achieved.
> Even as he
started out, Moloy was very clear about his motivations. The idea always has
been to bring greenery and life to a land where previously, there was nothing. The
idea never was and still is not, to somehow benefit personally from this
transformation. Moloy’s only income comes from a few cows which are looked
after by his son and elder brother cos he himself is always working in the
forest; I guess the wants of a man as simple as he is, are very few – so meagre
that even a few pints of milk from his
cows suffice.
> To prevent
poachers and tree-fellers, Moloy himself guards his forest. Armed with only a
lantern and a stick, Moloy sleeps alone in the forest night. He says that even
the animals of the forest take him as their own. On being asked by the
interviewer about the danger of snakes, Moloy replied simply that they do him
no harm; in fact, on many occasions, snakes slither over his body as he lies in
the forest at night, never harming him.
> On more than a
couple of occasions, Moloy had confronted gangs of tree-fellers who had come
into his forest at night. Himself armed with just a stick, he says that he had challenged
the trespassers armed with axes, that they would have to kill him before they could
harm his beloved trees. They had backed down in the face of such dauntlessness.
> Towards the end
of the interview, the interviewer asked Moloy as to who would defend the forest
once he was gone. Moloy’s reply was deceptively child-like; he said,” This
forest I have planted belongs to the people of the world. The oxygen that the
forest releases is being breathed in by the people of the world. This forest
and its inhabitants will be cherished and looked after by the people after I am
gone.”
Huh?! Hearing this
response, I thought to myself, “How little this person knows – he believes that
his little forest in a former sandbank in Assam benefits entire humanity.” Then
I realized my folly. Somehow the thinking of this (almost) illiterate goes
beyond just ‘me’ and ‘mine’ and he is able to preoccupy himself
with the good of all mankind! It was my thinking which I found regressive and self-occupied.
All along in this piece, I have referred to the forest as ‘Moloy’s forest’ (which is what the
local people call it interestingly), though a forest can hardly be created by
man alone, and the ownership of such a forest of course, is never man’s
prerogative. But somehow I feel as do the locals, that it is only right.
I have adapted the title for this piece from a line in the
story ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’ and the short clip from the film towards the
end where narrator lauds the efforts of Bouffier, provides the context.
