We have become so ‘human’ that we tend to forget what hitherto have been with us in our evolutionary development; plants and animals. Scholars tell us that we came out of primeval forests which supported animals and other living creatures, for a very long stretch of time.

Poet Brecht’s autobiographical lines symbolically hint at our human journey: “I, Bertolt Brecht, came out of the black forests/my mother moved me into the cities as I lay inside her body…” We, now called humans, were distinct from the plants but were surely counted among animals that infested green and leafy darkness that provided us food as well as shelter. Apart from plants and roots it were animals which were a valuable source of food for us. We are still dependent on these sources. But living in our tall boxes in cities we have fallen victim to an illusion: we can produce enough food and other related items with conventional and non-conventional farming to sustain ourselves. Technology is the bedrock on which we try to stand tall. The result is that we have become grossly indifferent to the fate of our companions; forests and animals. In our anthropocene era we have been further strengthened in our anthropocentric thinking that our right over everything we need has absolute priority on this planet. Ancient people were anthropocentric in terms of their beliefs and we are anthropocentric in terms of our practices.

How closely we are related with nature and its creatures is vividly illustrated by a story in Jaiminiya Brahmana (600BC) quoted by Wendy Doniger in her book “The Hindus”: “In the beginning, the skin of cattle was the skin humans have now, and the skin of a human was the skin that cattle have now. Cattle could not bear the heat, rain, flies, and mosquitoes. They went to humans and said, ‘Let this skin be yours and that skin be ours.’ ‘What would be the result of that?’ humans asked. ‘You could eat us,’ said the cattle. ‘And this skin of ours would be your clothing.’ So they gave humans their clothing…” And this not all we get from animals.

There is another story about plants (i.e. trees and forests) in our ancient literature. It goes like this: Students from all regions of India, China and Iran, and several other countries used to come to study at Takshashila (Taxila) University. The university had a department of medical studies. It so happened that after years of study when the moment of final exam came, a teacher asked one of his students to go on a five mile radius tour around the university, list all the herbs and plants and find out if there was any herb or plant which had no medicinal value. After his exhausting tour that took weeks, the student came back to the teacher, presented his findings and said, ‘sir, I couldn’t find any herb or plant in the area I trampled that has no medicinal use.’ The boy must have got 1st div. But look at us! We, for our profit, have crushed under our feet almost all the herbs, destroyed the plants and uprooted the trees making forests an anachronism.

Grand sage and poet Baba Farid had told us about the commercial and non-commercial relationships we have with trees and jungle: “Sharp axe on his shoulder, the logger circles the forest / you seek coal (in it) while I see my beloved (in it).” The trees have divinely existence.

But what we have been recklessly ‘planting’ are stones. We now live in a New Stone Age that overshadows anything and everything natural with its overwhelming horizontal and vertical presence.

Strangely, the more we erect stones the more we cry. After killing trees and green patches we widen roads for vehicular traffic but feel suffocated. After allowing the big money to build high rises in the heart of city and cut down all the green belts that surround it, we feel choked.

In their insatiable greed the powerful forget that smog and pollution are the wages of their sins. They can’t stop building haphazardly despite having qualified engineers. They can’t provide high standard fuel despite having oil refineries. They can’t check the fitness of the vehicles nor the drivers on the roads without driving licences nor they can reduce traffic fumes despite spending billions on police. They can’t stop the factories from producing toxic smoke and pollutants. They can’t stop the farmers from burning stubble, a cost effective way of getting rid of leftovers because they are unable to offer the farmers alternatives despite spending billions on agriculture universities and institutes. They can’t educate people, especially the poor, on family planning as they need cheap labour for their factories, offices and homes.

Our movers and shakers are good at nothing except making money, illegally in most cases. What they do best is offering solutions on ad hoc basis or coming up with cunning stratagems to mollify the public opinion. Instead of taking measures that reduce pollution, they reduce schools days from five to three. Instead of increasing the green areas, they order offices and businesses to open at three in the afternoon. What brilliant ideas occur to them! There is an adage in Punjabi: consult a wall if you have no one wise to seek advice from. They are perhaps not even capable of doing such a simple thing, consulting the others who are apparently dumb. They are surely dumber as far as the public welfare issues are concerned but not in the matters of extracting their pound of flesh. What’s now left for us is to come together to mourn the death of our cities and towns and what surrounds them. The least we can do is to confess and expiate our crimes.

We never heeded to what Baba Farid had warned us against: “The farmer plants an acacia tree but expects Bajour’s grapes from it / He spins a coarse wool but wants to wear a silk dress.” — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2023