Tree is not a Metaphor

Do we look at trees anymore? Not really. Very rarely. We index them as green noise, as vertical interruptions in our urban choreography. We plant them for ceremonies and cut them for development. We photograph them for their aesthetic, never their soul. But there is a but! The tree is not just a plant, nor shade, nor metaphor. The tree is the most antique autobiography we are too distracted to read.

There is something rude about how trees insist on stillness. They stand in protest of our hurry. They grow, not to conquer but to deepen. While we climb social ladders, they grow rings, one each year, holding famine, flood, storm, stillness and sunlight in concentric memory. If time had a spine, it would be a tree trunk.

Have you noticed that a tree never wears its age on its sleeve? It roots downward before it aspires upward—a lesson human civilization has repeatedly failed to learn. Every tree is a poem in a language we once understood but have long forgotten.

To a botanist, a tree is a perennial plant with stretched out stem or trunk, supporting branches and leaves. To a child, it is a swing post, a fruit-giver, a hiding spot. To a saint, it is a noiseless refuge. To the legal system, a tree is property. To a capitalist, timber. But the tree itself? The tree does not define itself. It just is.

There is humility in that. No tree names itself after its fruit. No tree demands applause for surviving a cyclone. No tree tweets its virtues. No tree poses for pictures. No tree breathes for publicity. No tree parades its roots of deep bonding. It simply practices the quiet revolution of becoming.

We say “family tree” as if our ancestors grew in neat branches. But trees are not neat. Roots cross, branches tangle, leaves drop when they must. There is disorder in their order; a kind of beautiful anarchy that resists straight lines and PowerPoint diagrams. Perhaps our lives should be more tree-like—not linear but layered, not narcissistic but bountiful, not hierarchical but interconnected.

Cut down a tree and you reveal its past. Not just its age, but its emotional weather. A wide ring means a good year. A narrow ring, stress. Each scar, each gap, each discoloration is a diary entry. What if we wore our years like that—visible and vulnerable? What if every suffering etched a line on our skin, and every year of peace added a circle of light?

Trees are not afraid of bearing witness. They have seen empires fall, rivers reroute, species vanish. They have watched us crawl out of caves, invent alphabets, build malls, go to Mars. And yet, remain rooted in one spot, watching.

We use tree as metaphor when we want to sound wise: “tree of knowledge,” “tree of life,” “rooted in tradition.” But a tree doesn’t represent wisdom. It is wisdom. The kind that doesn’t preach but persists. The kind that doesn’t clap back but quietly reclaims space.

A tree teaches us that growth is invisible. That most change happens underground before it ever becomes shade or fruit. That strength lies in flexibility, in bending with the wind, not resisting it.

Have you ever hugged a tree? Not Instagram-style, not performative. But truly? You will feel time exhale. Trees don’t offer answers. They absorb your questions until they are no longer questions. They accept you—heartbeat, sorrow, contradiction and all—without requiring you to be fixed.

There are trees that bleed red when cut like the dragon blood tree. There are trees that live 5,000 years. There are trees that clone themselves. There is even a tree in Africa that can explode its seeds like bullets when ripe. Trees are not passive. They are not decoration. They are not “greenery.” They are more alive than we allow ourselves to be.

In Kashmir, we have a tree called Chinar. Its wide leaves crimson the ground in autumn like a celebrated chaos. It is a memorial for us, our address, a part of our growing, our past….Jis Khaak Kay Zameer Main Ho Aatis-e-Chinar…. Take the Peepal. It is considered sacred, not because of superstition but because it breathes out oxygen even at night, a selfless service masked as miracle.

One day, we will look back and realize that the forests were not our backyard. They were our lungs. That cutting trees wasn’t landscaping. It was slow suicide. That the rings inside a tree trunk were not marks of age, but warnings etched in wood.

We say the planet is dying. No! The planet is shedding us like a tree sheds leaves before winter. It knows how to survive. The question is: do we?

And so, the tree remains. Unhurried. Unafraid. In its shadow, strangers meet. Under its bark, termites feast. Through its leaves, prayers rise. The tree does not judge. It does not flinch. It simply continues.

In a world constantly and madly shouting for attention, the tree whispers: “Grow quietly. Root deeply. Give generously. Fall gracefully. Rise again.”

If you ever forget who you are, go sit under a tree. It will remind you. Not with words, but with presence.

(This column is a tribute to the mighty Chinar I saw fallen in Naseem Bagh, brought down by the fury of a recent storm).