Murder by a thousand cuts

By Tissa Devendra

(January 09, Colombo,Sri Lanka Guardian) A few days ago, to my horror, I saw axe-men from the Town Hall hacking away at the oldest living thing in our neighbourhood – the only ‘bakmee-gaha’ in Colombo which stood proud and untroubled , for over a century, at the bend of the road where Longden/Malalasekera Place turns towards the Jatika Pola. It is a magnificent old giant almost 75 feet tall with a sturdy black trunk, gnarled and mottled with age and was crowned with a lush canopy of dark-green foliage. As I pass by it on my morning amble I salute it with an affectionate tap in memory of its brethren I met in the wilderness and on the tank bunds of Rajarata that I traversed as a young field officer many decades ago. With a heavy heart I watched as a fork-lift hefted tree-cutters to the higher branches which they chopped down ,one by one, leaving the trunk alone standing shorn and forlorn leaving just a few brave shoots with sadly fluttering leaves. As I write this requiem in the faint hope that the vandals in the Town Hall may read it and leave this great tree without further damage, I see in my mind’s eye the great changes in its environment this giant would have seen ….

Around a hundred years ago our ‘bakmee-gaha’ would have been a mere sapling, probably transplanted here by a nearby vedamahattaya carried all the way back from a pilgrimage to the sacred city of Anuradhapura, its native habitat. The fact that the bark of ‘bakmee-gaha’ is an ingredient of certain ayurvedic decoctions would have inspired our vedamahattaya to plant this sapling by the old well in his garden. This was in the vast stretch of low-lying wetland, all that remained of that ancient stretch of paddy land [yaya] shaded by ‘thimbiri’ trees ,the last of which stood near Abhayarama Vihara till it too fell to the wood-cutter’s axe. As the young tree grew tall and strong, it looked over a wide water meadow of waving reeds and flowering marsh plants. Ground hugging korawakkas and long-legged kokas darted at the little fish in watery shallows. Kabaragoyas and water snakes slithered in the deeper pools. A few yards away a little stream burbled along on its way towards Borella [bora- ela]. A dear old gent who had lived here remembers ,as a boy, fishing for loolas here in its clear waters.

Change gradually began with WW II when British troops were encamped in what later became rugger grounds. Huge army trucks sloshed through the mud carving out convenient shortcuts. Homesick Scots Guards put up a board naming one such path ‘Sauciehall Street’. The end of the war saw the emergence of the Unemployment Relief Works [URW], the government programme to absorb the huge excess of labour left over from wartime construction. These gangs were put to work digging enormous pits in various parts of Colombo and transporting the red excavated earth and gravel to fill various low-lying areas. One such quarry became the site of Torrington Flats. The earth dug out from here went to fill the marsh alongside Manning Town on which the Jatika Pola, and sundry viharas, now stand.

The once bucolic wetland of waving reeds and marsh birds became a slushy area of red mud with just a few pools and gahala kotuwas. The old well, with its perennial spring of clear water, continued to be a welcome bathing place and laundry for workmen and families on the ‘land side’ of Thimbirigasyaya Road. The ‘bakmee-gaha’ stood tall and untroubled through all these changes. Small strips of its bark were regularly gouged out as ingredients for ayurvedic kasayas, its branches spread out untrammeled and, once a year, a sad harvest of its furry little fruits sprinkled the ground at its feet.

Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum – and so do developers. It did no take long for them to realize that here was a wide stretch of buildable land in a prime location and, to cap it all, within the elite postal division of Colombo 7! It must have been about the 1970s that the builders got down to work with alacrity. Lorries carrying sand, bricks, cement and building materials scurried down newly designed muddy roads, followed by others loaded with household goods and cars of young families and children thrilled by their new homes "in the heart of Colombo".

About fifteen years ago, Mother Nature struck back at this violation. The once clear stream had degenerated into an open sewer for the new houses it bordered. It became heavily silted with assorted muck One glorious monsoon night it revolted and overflowing its banks, it flooded all ground level houses, driving other residents to refuge upstairs and marooning them for almost a day in a swirling mass of overflowing cess-pits. Things seem to have improved since then, but one never knows

The gods protected our firm-rooted bakmee-gaha through all these tribulations. It was left alone as it impinged not on roadway or household lot. A century ago this was a quiet place. Bats fluttered through the evening sky while flights of parrots arrowed their way to their roosts, lamplight flickered from the scattered huts and distant drumming from a temple was heard as was the kirala’s plaintive cry and the mournful hoot of the owl. Now glaring electric lights and loud music have banished the quiet of night. Rushing motorists on dusty roads have replaced the occasional buffalo who sloshed through the marsh, munching its reeds and wallowing in its coolness. Commerce of many varieties has invaded this once purely residential enclave. Among our tree’s neighbours are a beautician, a veterinarian, a physician, a dental surgeon, schools for dancing, art and piano and, in keeping with present trends – an NGO! I wonder whether they have singly, or severally, ganged up to pressure the Town Hall to eradicate this last relic of the history of the primordial swamp on which they have built their frail structures.

I rest my case with the hoary old phrase, "Woodman Spare That Tree!"