Coronavirus: Find Yourself In Social Isolation? Turn To Trees.

It’s the time of social isolation with the global coronavirus pandemic. In the absence of any good news or travel plans, state governments advocate less social interactions and staying home.

Could there be a positive side to social isolation for humans, the social animal?

I have one recommendation: watch an Indian tree.

It may seem to be an odd ask at a time when worry is gnawing at communities, and panic is spreading as fast as fake news.

The Semal, Palash and Indian coral are all Indian species that flower only in springtime. At this time, they turn the spotlight on their showy, usually scarlet red flowers, helpfully dropping most of their leaves for a fully floral performance.

Red flowers growing off tiger-claws: that is the Indian coral tree, growing in cities, highway-sides, and towns. It has coral-red blossoms, which grow in clusters. The vivid flowers are like a foil to its sharp, claw-like branches, which gives the tree the ‘tiger-claw’ moniker. Watch this little tree, and you will be rewarded: it is brimming with sunbirds and tiny Oriental White-eye birds. The white-eyes descend in flocks on the coral flowers: it is green feather and red petal all at once.

Then there is the showiest tree of them all, the Palash. Its red flowers look like flames of fire. Flower enthusiasts simply call this tree what it looks like—the flame of the forest. I’ve seen dusty highways and flyover-flanks transformed by the Palash. It sets a fire of colour to the city, though it is a jungle species. And it’s a magnet for bees and birds. The nativity of these trees are their strength: they strive and thrive in the dustiest of places; true city-spirits.

Each day—even during social isolation—I watch a flowering semal.

The tree is large, with a thorny trunk covered in spikes. The trunk looks reptilian, ancient, like it belongs to a dinosaur that leaps, not to a tree that stands still in a city.

Yet, the tree seems to be moving. Because it is always full of birds that descend on it, almost intoxicated, for this once-in-a-year-feast. I have counted thirty species of birds on the semal, national, local and international. From Europe and Asia, migratory Rosy Starlings feed on semal. The reviled crow tips its head back to swallow nectar in a way that could be described as dainty. Yellow-footed green pigeons coo from the branches, their eponymous yellow feet shining amongst the red flowers as they sing. Tiny sunbirds come for a sugar rush, while Rose-ringed parakeets and Red-vented bulbuls shred the flowers to bits. In the night, flying fox bats come.

The tree welcomes them all. And for the most part, I don’t see birds fighting over their food. They tolerate each other. There is no preponderance of rivalry, no pre-planned prejudice. Crows sit peaceably with pigeons, who perch on the same branch as an Oriental Magpie Robin or a Brahminy Myna.

This is an important lesson to take, as we grapple with our inherent biases that inevitably emerge during the crisis. As Indians congratulate each other on the Namaste greeting that does not involve holding hands and spreading viruses, people from North East India have lodged complaints against racist attacks from other Indians. Because they look ‘Chinese’ to fellow citizens, people have shamefully been calling them ‘coronavirus’.

I turn back to the Semal or Palash, asking how one tree could have so much to give. The profusion of flowers—hundreds of them on a single tree, with the flowering lasting more than a month—is actually part of a cycle that could be called fasting and feasting. The food is extensive. But this will be followed by a much more austere season—the summer, which will have arid conditions with less water, flowers, fruit, and food. It’s a compact lesson on balance.

The pandemic meanwhile has shown us how imbalanced some of our responses have become. Hand sanitisers and facial masks have been sold out. Discarded masks have become a serious cause of litter. We miss the point that you can’t safeguard yourself with things you buy with money—but with habits. The habit of washing hands with soap and water for twenty seconds, and covering one’s mouth while sneezing or coughing, have been espoused by medical practitioners for decades. But in hoarding things—skewed in favour of those with resources – we seem to expose a lack of common sense, and some loss of balance. On social media, some have called out others in not buying or using masks till the person shows symptoms, so others like the elderly can avail them instead. It reminds me of a particularly bad Diwali in Delhi, when mask manufacturers released range after range of facial masks, snapped up by anxious citizens. Soon, the market had moved on from masks with butterflies and flowers on them to sports masks that you could wear while running. There was no end to it: but people gasped anyway.

The thing to remember though is that we need good habits for a lifetime for health; not just emergency accessories. A measure of balance is needed. It’s like the semal could not have sustained flowering throughout the year. The tree is a pivot, a balance; it provides resources, it withdraws resources; a microcosm for seasons of bounty and difficulty which we need to tackle continually. Nature is a leveler, and the best source of acquiring common sense.

Right before the travel bans, I was in Mumbai, able to get away from choc-a-bloc meetings, to steal a few moments under a flowering semal. This one had peachy-red flowers, different from the bright red ones I saw in Delhi. On the tree though, an assortment of birds fed, sang and courted. Delhi’s semals get the Purple Sunbird; Mumbai’s semal had the Purple-rumped sunbird, which is not found in Northern India. Like the Capital though, there were Oriental Magpie robins, Yellow-footed green pigeons and Golden orioles on the tree.

It’s hard to tell when one will be able to travel again with travel bans in place. But it strikes me a flowering Indian tree is the same everywhere. It provides succour without discrimination.

We are riven through with political defections and differences, and it takes a virus to realise we are all the same people, equally strong and vulnerable.

Yet if you make time during this difficult period to watch a native flowering tree, you may find yourself part of a world full of beauty and surprise. And also, that most precious thing – life.

Neha Sinha works with the Bombay Natural History Society. Views expressed are personal.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.