Neem 1 of Bhopal

The tree on which the koels enacted their love dance is no ordinary neem; it is Neem 1 of Bhopal. 

Ref my previous blog: Dance of Life: Koels, Cobras and Sparrows: 

https://pkdash-author.blogspot.com/2024/06/dance-of-life-koels-cobras-and-sparrows.html

In July, 2015 the electricity maintenance staff cut several branches of this tree which they considered too close to the supply line. The tonsured tree looked sad and helpless.In my view, a lesser pruning would have sufficed. I shouted at them to think before chopping off large branches of this beautiful tree providing fruits to squirrels and birds and nests, too. I created an email id (neem1bhopal@gmail.com) to start a public campaign to save the tree from being felled by misguided electricity employees.

Today, I received a Google notification:

“You're receiving this message because your Google Account has not been used in at least eight months.

If you want to keep your Google Account, sign in to it before 12 February 2025. Take a moment now to sign in to your Google Account.

If you do not sign in to your Google Account before 12 February 2025, Google will delete your Google Account and its activity and data.”

I signed in to save the email account. I am on high alert when the electricity staff comes for their annual chopping and pruning. The tree is alive and happy, luxuriant lush green, and home to many birds and squirrels.

Neem 1 is about 20 years old, I guess, and would be there long after I am gone since average life-span of a neem tree is 150-200 years. Unless assassinated by electricity department or other killers.

Neem’s botanical name, Azadirachta indica, is interesting; the first word is a compound of two Persian words - Azad Dirakht (literally, free or noble tree), meaning abundantly found tree, and the second word refers to its favourite territory.

Dirakht is possibly derived from the Sanskrit word 'Vriksha'.

THE GARDEN OF LIFE by NAVEEN PATNAIK

Many years ago, I had read The Garden of Life: An Introduction to the Healing Plants of India by Naveen Patnaik (Former CM of Odisha). I wished to read it again, and located it at naveen.pdf (archive.org)

The book provides a snapshot of seventy sacred and medicinal plants of India and has a beautiful miniature painting for each plant.

Should you like to buy a copy of the book, a Collector’s item, it is available at Amazon (Hardcover- 4499.96, Paperback-3183.79), and also at The Garden of Life:Book (naveenpatnaik.in)

Here is an extract from the chapter on Neem:

“Today the margosa is valued more highly for its capacity to exorcise the demons of disease than the spirits or the dead, and an image of the folk goddess Sitala can often be seen suspended from a margosa branch where she guards against smallpox, once the great killer or the Indian countryside. With the eradication of smallpox, now bathing in a margosa-leaf infusion, excellent for soothing scabs and clearing away scars, marks the ritual termination or an. attack of chicken pox or measles.

Renowned for its antiseptic and disinfectant properties, the tree is thought to be particularly protective of women and children. Delivery chambers are fumigated with its burning bark. Dried margosa leaves are burned as a mosquito repellent. Fresh leaves, notorious for their bitterness, are cooked and eaten to gain immunity from malaria.

This tree, so beloved or India—with its fine star like flowers, its long lime-colored berries, and its leathery crests tossing fifty feet into the sky—is an invaluable natural pesticide and its oil is used to protect the bark of other trees from termites. For centuries its leaves have been used to store grain, or to preserve papers and clothes. Ecologically sympathetic, the classical texts or Indian architecture even call the margosa “Earth's Wish-Fulfilling Tree” because its inflorescence is purifying and its termite-resistant timber is invaluable to house construction in the tropics. More mundanely, the tree is revered by Indian herdsmen as a gentle but effective veterinary poultice, a virtue confirmed by the sixteenth-century Portuguese botanist and traveler, Garcia da Orta in his Coloquios:

Doctor R.: I beg you to recall the tree by the help or which you cured that valuable horse.

Orta: It is a tree that has great repute as valuable and medicinal. . . . The sore backs of horses that were most difficult to clean and heal were very quickly cured . . . with leaves pounded and put over the sores, mixed with lemon juice.

Margosa seed oil has been clinically tested as an external contraceptive, used by women as a spermicidal.”

On Banyan tree, a quote from the book:

"The British traders who followed King James's ambassador observed that Indian merchants, or banias, frequently conducted their business under this great tree, considering a contract made in its shade to be binding. Sometimes as many as a thousand banias collected between the plunging roots of one tree as if it were a stock exchange made of living wood, leading the British to name the tree of the banias the banyan."

Comments by Readers

Sangeeta Verma

She liked the piece, but offered a counter view.

“I live in a congested area of South Delhi and no deptt takes on the responsibility of annual pruning of trees. Requests to CPWD just go unanswered!  Not only are the branches growing into electricity wires, they are growing into the walls of houses, across windows! So, while I love the touch of green and morning bird song they bring (the latter specially as otherwise it is only the cacophony of vehicle horns), i would definitely value some pruning to allow sun & light during winters and prevent damage to our old walls!

How I wish I had among my readers E.E., CPWD, South Delhi to address Sangeeta Ji's concern! I offered her: 

'A quick solution. Just get CPWD to take on deputation a few chaps from my area. They are fanatical tree-choppers!'😀