When our Rottweiler, Naaz had a leg injury after sparring with her brother, a local part-time vet dropped in. He seemed terrified of Naaz’s friendly overtures, as he fitted a large syringe with a large needle. The way he jabbed the needle into her bottom suggested that he was more familiar with vaccinating cows. My hunch was confirmed when I saw a picture of a cow on the label of the pain killer. Local vets could be forgiven for repeatedly saying hoof instead of paw because they have mostly treated cattle.
After a few false starts, we found a gentleman who became our go-to vet. He reminds me that antibiotics and steroids are not good for dogs. He tends to suggest the longer, harder path to treat my other Rottweiler, Sherkhan, whose size and strength have been offset by his delicate constitution.
I have a battery of medicines for treating Sherkhan’s skin condition. Neem oil has emerged as the leader of the pack. For him and my other dogs, I prefer to use home remedies, to avoid ruining their chemical composition. Ideally, I would have liked to treat him with fresh neem.
The neem tree always had a special place in an Indian household. Most houses had neem in the backyard, which came in handy. It is said that when the Gods and Demons churned the ocean to get amrit (elixir of life), neem grew from the few drops of amrit that fell on earth. Traditional folklore called neem a protector, especially during epidemics. It is often considered a manifestation of Goddess Durga, a powerful feminine force. Way back, when Charak Samhita (the authority on Ayurveda) was written, in around the 1st century BCE, neem was already known for treating skin disorders. I cannot forget the childhood trauma of bathing in neem infused water while recovering from chicken pox and malaria.
Now I see neem as the closest thing to elixir for my dogs, and sadly the tree is rare in this area. Not surprising because it rains so much in and around Vermitas.
Anyway, we planted a sapling. Unfortunately, it remained a sapling for a very long time, just growing a little over 2 feet. For reasons unknown to us, the neem tree would not grow, despite a generous dose of manure. I would helplessly watch the slender branches lose the handful of leaves. The growing shade of our farmhouse construction did not help. One day, the neem withered into a brown stick. I was hoping to revive it elsewhere, but someone uprooted it.
Ashir inferred that neem couldn’t grow in Vermitas. Was I, to hazard the phrase, barking up the wrong tree? I asked our landscaping contractor if neem trees could indeed grow in this area. He responded with an emphatic yes, as though I had asked if the sun would rise again. So we made a second attempt.
Finding an open spot on a tropical plantation is like looking for a pond in a desert. Yet, like the Bedouins, we went looking. This time around, I chose an empty spot near a resilient grove of banana trees. Because we have so many banana groves on the plantation, one particular grove was bulldozed several times to make way for a vegetable patch. But after a few weeks, young shoots or suckers would sprout from nothing, in the exact same spot. So I assumed that there was a happy mix of sun, water and soil in this spot. The neem sapling was planted near the banana.
The neem grew slowly but surely in the torrid Southern Indian heat of March and April, which drew life out of everything and everyone. But not the neem. We are not sure what all worked for it this time. Was it the timing or the place? Ashir reckons that the neem tree thrived in the company of the construction workers who cooked nearby. It enjoyed their banter and the aroma of their cooking. I had requested the workers to be mindful of the young tree. They may even have treated it with the starch water from the rice or some leftover tea.
We suspect that a major reason is the bromance that has blossomed between the neem and banana. They seem to be doing fine even in extreme weather. They are both known to be highly dependent on the underground fungal network, for essential nutrients, especially phosphorus. Given their proximity, they both receive goodies from one another through the mycorrhizal fungal network. I had read about the importance of this give and take across trees. But it is the first time, I get to marvel at nature’s little miracle. This is why single trees in urban homes do poorly. In our previous attempt, the neem was a lonesome fixture, away from the rest of the plantation.
The neem keeps insects at bay, while the banana shelters the neem, allowing the neem’s slender trunk to withstand the pre-monsoon storms and the non-stop monsoon rains. Admittedly, the wet soil is not ideal for neem. This heart-warming story of camaraderie is strewn all over the plantation. We just don’t pay as much attention. The entire rubber plantation is working through the underground mycorrhizal network that allows the trees to share nutrients and warn other trees about a predator.
While the neem tree remained indifferent to extreme weather, I became emotionally attached to the tree. I felt as though my dogs’ fate was inexplicably tied to that of the tree. The more I observed it, the more it grew on me. Each time there was a storm, I was anxious about its fate. I cried when it went missing, just after instructing my staff to give it a bit of support. Turns out, in his enthusiasm, he had fixed an iron rod to support the tree. When the wind blew, the rod fell, pulling with it the tree to the ground. The neem lay on the ground in stoic defiance, as though it had imbibed the supple rubber-like quality from the plantation. When I untied it, it sprung up like a wacky inflated tube man or like someone waking up from a bad dream.
So far, the neem tree’s story of endurance is worth celebrating, yet it is still not out of the woods. It would barely qualify as a tree as it still needs support. But it remains steadfast as it gets battered by the torrential rains now. At 10 feet, it is already smart enough to start leaning away from its big brother, in search of sunlight. Hopefully, in the coming years, the tree trunk will become thick, and furrowed like the forehead of a wise man, while the leaves will become bushy enough to shelter peacocks and chickens, and a nesting place for other birds. Sherkhan of course will get to be traumatised by neem baths.
Well narrated, How old is it now ?