Banyn Tree

Banyan Tree

P K Routray

With majesty stands a banyan tree

In its thick foliage beauty of the nature we see.

Its shed in summer is a paradise to a traveler

and Its branches give many birds lifelong shelter

In the days of yore, people had a belief that nurturing a banyan tree

fetches one a passport and hence a passage to the heaven free.

Then adorning both sides of roads as pearls green ornament

these trees were making the travel and ride playful and pleasant.

In due course of time under the savage of civilization

they have been uprooted and had faced extinction.

During a tornado or a cyclone

this tree are east broken and thrown.

but diverts wind in its direction

there by saving thatched roofs of poors in million.

Certainly during flood

to mny it provides sajety abode

Though it gives shelter to one and all,

But under it nothing is grown big or small.

in India each village had a banyan tree at one end

The Goddess of the village worshipped under it, the village to defend

the deity protects the villagers from any mishaps and epidemics

fasting for cure under it as per dream was then popular believes.

A lone banyan tree near a cremation ground or at a fore shaken place,

a befiting place for ghosts and ghouls to rest and make it their base.

Those days have already gone,

now under it the village club is born.

The love and the respect for this tree is on the wane,

as evident the change is not a boon but sure a bane.

Many interesting and funny observations

centering round this big tree are here for deliberations

A micro seed in a mini fruit

contains this Giga tree with mega shoot.

Its seeds are never harvested for plantation

the saplings sprouts from the excretes of birds after digestion.

All these perhaps indicate the inferiority in size and class

does not stand on one’s way nor deter one, the greatness to amass.