On the Book of Revival
Looking at a tract of
forests, I hardly believed that this was once an open, degraded patch of land
reminiscent of a rainforest that stretched beyond the mountains. The
photographs we saw, and the photographs we took, showed a stark contrast: in
the beginning, it was a bramble of invasive herbs and shrubs, suffocating
native trees and forbidding their growth. Fifteen years on, a canopy of tall
trees races skywards in a thunderstorm-like profusion, chasing the heights
their ancestors once achieved in another age. What began as a story of lost
faith appeared to be rising in hope, and the plot of the story we missed in
between, of upheaval and invasion, resurrection and renewal – a crucial mass of
any story – we were fortunate to listen to from the caretakers who helped revive
this story.
The stalwarts have now
passed the quill to nature, and this fragment which borders a road on one side
and rows of tea plantations on the other, now writes for itself. A small signage
alerts us that thi…