We seem to be going through an era of merciless and utterly needless tree - killing. Let alone completely ignoring the role and importance of our trees in the ecology of our planet, we seem to be behaving as if we have some great score to settle against all the trees around us.

All around us, day in and day out, we see trees being felled for trivial and avoidable reasons. Only a month ago we woke up to find nearly eight huge Ashoka trees suddenly missing overnight from the ancient group that lined the two sides of Jhansi Lakshmi Bai road near the Railway Station. As expected, everyone who was suspected to be behind this act, that was nothing short of premeditated, cold blooded, murder, pleaded ignorance. The lone representative of the Forest Department, who finally broke the silence days later, only said that since no permission had been sought or granted to fell these trees, the Department would file a complaint and book a case in this regard. As in almost every case of tree slaughter, the matter and the case if it has been booked, stands there.

Just last evening I noticed that some giant rain trees that had been standing for perhaps more than a century in the premises of the former Palace garage adjacent to our Police Commissioner’s office had been chopped down to make way for a building there. I understand that the place on which those trees had the audacity to stand may now be private property and someone may point out that I have no locus - standi to question how they are treated. But still my heart bleeds because I cannot help feeling that whoever owns that place could have been a little kind - hearted to spare the trees which would have been a natural asset to whatever man - made structure that is going to come up there.

The development and growth of our cities is an inevitable necessity that we have to accept whether we like it or not. But very often with just a little foresight we can plan our developmental activities to retain the already existing trees in the master plan since they cannot be grown in a hurry wherever we wish to have them. Of late we have been reading reports of fully grown trees being transplanted to areas far flung from their original locations, thanks to the efforts of people with a will to protect and preserve our environment. Notable among these efforts are those of a group of tree lovers who successfully transplanted an entire batch of avenue trees in Mumbai some years ago and the more recent successful relocation of some trees in Bangalore which stood in the way of our metro rail project near M. G. Road.

I have noticed that a new luxury hotel that has come up in Mysore has transplanted some fully grown wild date palms (Phoenix sylvestris) from some distant source onto its lawns. Over the past two months I have been watching these trees keenly with the eagerness of the gardeners themselves and I am happy to say that they seem to be sprouting new fronds. Except for this I did not know of any attempt in our city to translocate any fully grown trees until yesterday when Arun Joyappa, my close friend and a fellow coffee planter, walked into my office with a CD and asked me to view it on my laptop. What unfolded on the small screen was nothing short of amazing.

It appears in the process of widening the ring road between the point where it intersects the Bogadi road and the Manandawadi Road, a huge banyan tree that has been estimated to be more than a hundred years old had been felled about two weeks ago. Mr. Nagaraj, a tree lover and environmental activist, who noticed this, drew the attention of some of his friends who happened to be Club members of Rotary Royal, igniting the spark of conservation in them. What followed is open for all to see from the photographs alongside.

The Club members, who included my friend Arun, decided to pool their resources, both financial and logistic and transplant the fallen and almost dying giant to a safer location almost two kilometers away on the bank of the Lingambudhi Lake whose days too seem to be numbered. Under the guidance of another good soul, Mr. Nagaraj, a Range Forest Officer, they hired two giant cranes, a JCB excavator and a fifty ton, twenty - wheeler trailer lorry and got to work on the eighteenth of this month.

The operation that started at dawn and which turned out to be tougher than expected ended almost at dusk with everyone involved in the task heaving a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

Although it cost the Club almost a whopping eighty thousand rupees, members feel it is a sum well spent and a task well done. It is a story that should do us Mysoreans proud and also set an example of how a little foresight and ordinary team spirit can fetch extraordinary results.

I feel this tree transplant operation is nothing short of any heart transplant operation which is considered an epoch - making medical achievement.

But the real heart transplants that we all seem to need in ecological and most other matters too, is from the insensitive hearts that most of us have at present to the feeling hearts that we all need.