When it’s Women’s Day and Holi at the same time…
Story of my hero, Amrita Devi, on International Women’s Day.
In 1730, Amrita Devi Bishnoi, stood up against the mighty guards of the King of Jodhpur, who wanted to cut Khejri trees to build his palace. Bishnois, like all indegenous people, know the value of nature. Amrita Devi and her daughters were willing to give up their lives to protect the trees which gave them life. And they did.
More than 300 Bishnois gave up their lives to protect the Khejri forest, which today, is a protected zone. This is also the genesis of the Chipko movement of Uttarakhand, started by hill women in 1970s. They knew that cutting trees to build things, whether it’s palaces or roads, is disastrous. Joshimath’s collapse is a glaring example but there are many more less obvious ones. My article on that here (https://medium.com/@jayati-talapatra/joshimath-donut-economics-and-conversations-at-home-86a4136acecd)
Do women intuitively know the importance of nature more because they are most affected by changes in it?
Do they realise the short-lived benefits of ‘things’ which come at the cost of planetary and human health?
Is the overwhelming focus on material wealth a patriarchal construct?
Vandana Shiva’s book on ‘Ecofeminism’, for one, talks about it in detail.
Then today is also Holi, the Spring festival which Lord Krishna loved. So a story from Mahabharat seems right. And it’s about a parrot and we will assume the parrot is male.
A hunter pierced a tree with a poison arrow. As the tree slowly died, a parrot who lived on it, grieved and began to die with it. Indra, the god of rain, observed this and wondered why the parrot didn’t leave. When he asked, the parrot said it’s because he had got everything in his life from this tree. As she now dies, how could he abandon her?
This tree, my Semal (Silk Cotton), has been saved by us from neighbours who want it dead. Because its flowers stain their cars. And because they want bigger and more cars which need more parking space, taken up selfishly by this tree.
Unlike Amrita Devi or Parrot, I am not willing to give up my life for her. But I will raise my voice and be unpopular, call the police and make life miserable for anyone who harms a tree on my watch.
As we celebrate Holi and commemorate Women’s Day, let us enjoy and pray at the alter of beauty. Of Spring, of nature, of the feminine power in each one of us which makes us capable of taking on the whole world.
