We recently harvested one of the two coconut trees on our property and ended up with nearly 100 coconuts—30 tender coconuts and 70 mature ones. In the market, tender coconuts sell for about ₹40 each, while the hard ones go for ₹25. By simple math, that’s ₹1,200 for the tender coconuts and ₹1,750 for the mature ones, totaling ₹2,950.
This is exactly how our education system trains us—to calculate, to sell, to measure success through numbers. But as I stood there, staring at the pile of coconuts scattered around after the worker we hired cut them down for a meagre fee, one haunting question rose in me: What did I actually contribute to this entire process?
The answer: Nothing.
I didn’t plant the tree. I didn’t water it. I didn’t look after it. Someone who owned this property a decade ago must have planted it and cared for it. Today, I don’t even know if that person is alive. I have no idea what they looked like or why they bothered to plant a tree whose benefits they might never enjoy. What drove them to put in the effort for something that would only flourish long after they were gone?
I am completely city-bred—Bombay, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Chennai, UAE, Bangalore, Europe, and back to Bangalore. Across five decades of life, not once have I held mud in my hands to plant a sapling. Until today, that absence never troubled me. But now, it weighs on me like never before.
Theoretically, we all know the importance of planting trees. We learn the steps in textbooks. But the moment you actually plant one, I am certain the act transcends science. It becomes philosophy. It becomes life itself.
I don’t know if I’ll ever truly manage it, but if there’s one thing I want to dedicate the rest of my life to, it’s planting trees. Perhaps years from now, someone will stand where I once stood and think or write:
“Someone who owned this property a decade ago must have planted it and cared for it. Today, I don’t even know if that person is still alive. I have no idea what they looked like or why they bothered to plant a tree whose benefits they might never enjoy. What drove them to put in the effort for something that would only flourish long after they were gone?”