Garden of Literature

One week back, one of my friends in Thiruvananthapuram called and asked me to just go through an article written by him, which was published in a Delhi based magazine titled Public Agenda. Since the magazine was not active online, he sent me a copy of his neatly written article in word format to my e-mail. But, unfortunately, some problem occurred to my Operating System and so I was not able to check the internet in my laptop.

Today morning, I just tried to download it and though with much effort and minutes and minutes long wait, I could open it and read it. The article, which was titled ‘A Garden for Trees from Literary World’, was about a person in northern part of Kerala, who, though a businessman by profession, motivated by his love for trees and literature, has been maintaining a botanical garden expecting neither popularity nor profit.

My friend Dileep, who was mentioned in My Inception Experience as a movie encyclopedia, interviewed this nature and literature lover and collected interesting details. His garden has more than 1000 trees, belonging to as much as 300 species. Besides, the presence of birds, harmless animals like mongooses, squirrels and rabbits make it a perfect ecosystem.

Like stamp collection to someone and numismatics to some other one, maintaining a botanical garden with trees, which got special mention in literature, is like a hobby to this special person, named Maliekal Mohammad. He got his love for Chestnut tree from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ and thus collected a sapling from somewhere in the globe. Mangostein tree, which appears in the works of coveted Malayalai writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer and Pomgranate Tree (Neermathalam in Malayalam), which was a favourite of renowned authoress Kamala Das, also adorn this beautiful Botanical garden.

Besides, the Sababul Tree from Kahlil Gibran verses, legendary trees like Kadamba, Palasa and Simsipa from of Hindu puranas, Cedar trees of the Sacred Bible and Olive from Holy Koran also are part of this exotic garden. I think, my friend has done a great job in spotting this man and introducing him to the public. 

I hope, you wonderful writers of the Bloggosphere also have love for certain trees. Though not a wonderful writer, with nostalgia, I still remember a Guava tree which stood at the side area of my home, which was demolished some years before.