[I wrote this last month in response to the prompt at our writers group: Write as a tree watching centuries pass.]

Some years back, a few humans came by to gawk at me. I marvelled at their tenacity in penetrating the deep forest and reaching me.

Long before they came into my line of vision, I could hear them hacking away at the undergrowth, to reach me. But even before I heard them, I got news of each step they took through the forest. It is not just humans who have systems of communication in place. We trees do too, just differently, without marring the beauty of our surroundings with unsightly poles and wires.

Anyway…

What?

Oh!

You want to know who I am? And also why I was important enough for people to inconvenience themselves to get to me? Okay.

I am Tectona grandis, the Kannimara Tree, a legendary forest giant. The humans who came to see me had heard of me through other humans who were our friends. You see, they, children of the forest, and we, have co-existed from time immemorial, or in my case for exactly five hundred years.

Yes, that’s how old I am.

Quite young compared to some of my predecessors, some species of whom have been around for thousands of years. Imagine the stories they could tell.

I have stories of my own too. Of the white men who came the same way the others would come later. They tapped on my trunk, checked the branches and the canopy, measured my girth, cut through my bark to get at my sap….

And then they—the white humans—disappeared, leaving me to myself.

I was left alone for years afterwards. The undergrowth grew back making it difficult to get to me. I was forgotten for the next hundred years.

But…

It was not as if I was ignorant of what was going on around me in those years. I am too tall, and like I said, I have eyes—or spies—everywhere. They told me of the freedom struggles, the marches, the resistances. And one fine day, this land on which I stand was free. Or so I heard. I have my reservations.

Anyway…

The second coming of the humans changed my life forever. My surroundings were cleared. I was given a plaque detailing my several years of existence. I was written about. People started coming to see me, click me and… take selfies with me.

What comes next? I have no idea. Just grow as much as I can, I guess, and try and survive the future where foolish humans might just push that button and annihilate us all.

©️ Shail Mohan 2026