When my wife Deepali asked our son Vivaan, who is on the autism spectrum and non-verbal, what his idea of a perfect world might be, he paused, typed slowly, and offered three simple phrases: “No pain. Love always. More trees.” When we asked him why he loved trees so deeply, he typed again: “Trees don’t judge.”
Vivaan’s love for nature has slowly transformed us into pilgrims of forests. Whenever possible, we choose national parks over cities, trails over malls, silence over noise. The human being’s relationship with trees is elemental. It is biological, cultural, psychological and philosophical all at once. It shapes how we breathe, think, build, and imagine meaning.
At the most fundamental level, humans and trees are partners in survival. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen; humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Every breath we take is, in part, a gift from trees. Dendrology, the science of trees, reminds us they have a complex intelligence that science is only beginning to comprehend.
In recent decades, science has revealed what we have naturally intuited – that trees reduce stress, sharpen memory and nurture creativity. Humans seem neurologically wired to respond to forests with calm and awe. Parks and gardens feel restorative because the mind recognises something ancient and familiar. The Japanese concept of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, captures this insight with elegance: being among trees is therapy.
Literature, too, has long sensed this truth. In Around the World in 80 Trees, Jonathan Drori travels across continents to reveal how trees shape every dimension of human life, from the romantic to the regrettable. The banyan tree in India, the lime trees of Berlin, the eucalyptus of nineteenth-century London, the redwoods of California – each becomes a portal into history, science, culture and imagination. Drori’s book may appeal to a niche audience, but it offers a rare and subtle pleasure for those who enter its world.
Long before environmentalism became a buzzword, Indian literature was already grappling with the moral tension between nature and progress. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s Aranyak remains one of the most haunting meditations on this conflict. Its protagonist, Satyacharan, arrives in a forested landscape as a manager tasked with clearing land for cultivation. Hypnotised by the beauty of the forest, he also becomes complicit in its destruction. Ancient trees fall, indigenous communities are displaced, and the promise of development brings waves of dispossession. Written in the late 1930s, Aranyak reads today like prophecy, a lyrical elegy for worlds erased in the name of progress.
If Aranyak mourns the destruction of forests, Tree: A Life Story by David Suzuki and Wayne Grady celebrates their endurance. By tracing the life of a single Douglas fir across a millennium, the book reveals the extraordinary complexity of a being we often take for granted.
The tree is a living universe, sustaining countless forms of life. Through poetic prose and scientific insight, Suzuki and Grady remind us that trees are not resources; they are relationships.
Peter Wohlleben pushes this idea further in The Hidden Life of Trees. Drawing on groundbreaking research, he argues that forests are social networks. Trees communicate, share nutrients, protect their young and warn each other of danger. Forests resemble families, communities bound by cooperation and care. Wohlleben’s book indicates that perhaps intelligence is not exclusive to humans, and empathy is not limited to animals.
Vivaan may not have read these books. Yet, his intuition echoes their deepest insights. When he says trees do not judge, he implies that in the presence of trees, we are freed from performance. Trees do not demand success, identity, productivity, or ideology. They simply exist, and allow us to exist.
Vivaan’s vision of a perfect world is a child’s sentence. It is also a manifesto. And if humanity is to survive, it may have to listen more carefully to children – and to trees.
(The writer’s views are personal)