The Orthopedic Coconut Tree

A visit to an open air school for the children of the Soliga tribals in the forest around Mysore.  A wonderfully simple  but delicious South-Indian meal.  Time to wash our hands, we step out; and there it was!

A curiously twisted coconut tree, with what seemed like a huge bite taken out of its side and filled in with cement!  My hosts noticed me looking at it in wonder and said, “There’s an interesting tale around that tree.  Would you like to hear it?”

A few others had joined us by then, who doesn’t like a good story?  The story ran thus.  The building we were in and the surrounding hospital were managed by a group of idealistic doctors who had passed out of the Mysore University some time ago.  They mobilized funds, got the required clearances from the government ,cleared the land and started the construction of the hospital and school buildings. 

They had also decided to plant a few fruit bearing trees including a few coconut palms in the vast tracts of land surrounding the buildings.  What they did not realize was that they were bang smack in the middle of the elephants' yearly migratory route!

A month after they had planted the coconut samplings; it happened.  A lone elephant, mad at the world in general, went on a rampage, breaking up the fences and pulling up the plants and generally creating mayhem.

This tree had also suffered at the hands of the rampaging mammoth, but though mangled and bruised,  it stubbornly clung on to its lifeline, the earth.

One of the doctors, an orthopedist, whose compassion encompassed all, decided to get it back on its roots.   For the lack of anything better, he mixed up some Plaster of Paris, filled in the deep gouges and also created a support so the tree would not keel over.   And the tree survived!  Misshapen and twisted, it still stands to this day; its gouge partially filled with cement now, but proudly bearing bunches of coconuts!