The No-Tree-Place

This is Jadav. He plants trees. Jadav loves tree-places, because they are full of life. No-tree-places make him very sad, because nothing lives there.

Many years ago, Jadav was walking next to the great Brahmaputra River in India. He came to a big, empty place with no trees. It was dry and hot, and the sand was soft like powder. The sand had stripes. “Striped sand? How strange,” Jadav thought. He went closer to look.

Oh! They were not stripes at all. The ground was covered with snakes! “Last night’s flood must have carried them here,” Jadav thought. But the snakes were not moving like healthy snakes. When Jadav walked among them, they did not hiss or run away or try to bite him. They just lay there like old ropes, tired and still.

“Poor snakes! The sun is too hot for them. If only they had some shade! If only this place had some trees!” Jadav could not stand it. He felt so sad for the snakes that he sat down on the hot sand and began to cry.

But soon he stood up again. “No more crying. From now on, only trying!” He ran back to his village and filled his bag with young bamboo plants. “Most plants can’t grow in this hot sand, but bamboo can. Bamboo is strong!”

Jadav planted the bamboo all over the empty place. It was hard, hot work, and it took years. Some summers, the river was low. Other summers, it flooded and brought more sand. Heavy rains came and went. But Jadav kept on planting.

Slowly, the bamboo grew. It made shade, and the shade brought insects. The insects dug into the ground, and the earth under the bamboo began to change. The dry, white sand became rich, brown soil. Now other plants could grow there too, and Jadav had a new idea.