On the Marina seaside, an outdated man warming a low wall mounted with a metal grille finds a silent companion in an outdated Neermaruthu tree. The tree stands in a backyard enclosed by this wall. The 2 appear related at greater than a bodily degree. They’re at comparable life levels. The outdated man has weariness of time weighing down on him, getting by on a walker, which he has stored subsequent to him, as a setting solar douses him in a mild mild. Bent and wizened not as a lot by age as vandalism, the tree appears to stretch out in direction of the ebbing solar. Its buttress has been chewed out, and within the large hole, an opportune younger Peepal tree grows. The within of the hollowed-out buttress bears a burnt look, the black inside contrasting with the pure whiteness on the outer floor of the intact buttress and the trunk.

T.D. Babu, key member of tree conservation organisation Nizhal and a member of the Chennai District Inexperienced Council, factors out that this outdated tree makes a commentary on the panorama. Being an indicator species, it’s a trusted chronicler of the panorama’s historical past, now rudely overshadowed by improvement. This tree stands at a piece of the Marina, the place a life-size statue of Bharathiyar does too. To its west, the tree finds the workplace of the Water Sources Division situated on the opposite aspect of Kamarajar Salai. Cooum river isn’t too removed from the scene. To the north, the tree finds the river getting into below the Napier bridge, holding palms with the thick waters of the Buckingham Canal earlier than bounding down the final stretch merrily in direction of the ocean. 

Babu explains that Neermaruthu (Terminalia Arjuna; referred to as in on a regular basis conversations throughout India as Arjuna) is a species discovered alongside rivers and different waterways, largely alongside the coast. This tree was not planted and occurred naturally and is due to this fact an iconic illustration of the panorama’s intrinsic character. Within the olden days, the Cooum and the ocean would have interacted far more in another way than they do now, and the previous’s contours would have modified over the centuries.

Stands of Neermaruthu bushes within the neighborhood of the Cooum in a pre-development period couldn’t be dominated out. This lone, outdated tree might be the uncommon one to outlive this improvement. With no matter vim it has, this tree must be protected for the residing showcase of pure historical past that it’s.