009. The man who planted trees

I was then young and fond of travelling. Once I was walking in an area I had never visited. The land was dry and hot. I walked on for three days and I did not meet anyone. I did come across some villages, but these had been abandoned. The houses and even the temples were crumbling.

I realised that I was in an area where the people used to make charcoal from wood. They went on cutting trees until there was nothing left. The land became barren and dry. The wells dried up and there was no water. The people had to leave the villages and go away.

As I walked on the hot and dusty land, I felt the howling wind that made things even worse. My water bottle was empty and I was very thirsty. Just then, I saw something at a distance. I walked towards it and, to my great relief, I saw a shepherd. He had some sheep and a dog.

The shepherd did not show any surprise on seeing me. He gave me some water and took me to his hut. The stone hut was very neat and tidy. I noticed that the man was also neatly dressed. He did not talk much. He just made me welcome. It was clear he expected me to spend the night as his guest.

He made some simple food and shared it with me. As I rested after the long walk, he was busy. He brought a bag full of seeds to the table. He examined carefully each seed and put aside the good ones. When he had selected a hundred seeds, he put them in a separate pile. We then went to sleep.

In the morning, he let his sheep out for grazing, with his dog to guard them. He set off with a stick and the seeds and I followed him. He would make a hole on the ground with his stick, place a seed in the hole and close it. He continued doing so until he had planted all the hundred seeds.

I found out that his name was Elzéard Bouffier. When his wife and son died, he came to live here. Seeing the dry and barren land, he decided to plant trees. Over three years, he had planted 100,000 seeds and expected at least 10,000 trees to grow and survive. The land was not his and he did not know who owned it. He did not really care. All he did was to plant the seeds, a hundred of them every day.

I took leave of him and later I even forgot the incident. A few years later, I returned to the area. Suddenly I remembered Elzéard Bouffier.  and went looking for him. On the way, I noticed that some of the trees planted by him were growing. He was now far away from where I had met him. However, he was still doing exactly the same thing: planting a hundred seeds every day.

I started visiting Elzéard Bouffier once in two or three years. As the trees rose tall and as the forest grew, the birds came, followed by many animals. The howling wind became a gentle breeze. What was even more wonderful, the rains came and the wells had water again. Slowly, people returned to the villages. Houses and temples were rebuilt. There was once again life and laughter in the area.

The Forest Department noticed the change and thought that a natural forest had come up by itself. One day, a forest ranger told Elzéard Bouffier that he could not light a fire in his hut, because the natural forest had to be protected! Elzéard Bouffier simply moved further away, but continued his work.

A forest officer was my friend and I took him to meet Elzéard Bouffier. My friend was also greatly impressed with the man’s dedication. He told me, “Elzéard Bouffier  has discovered a wonderful way to be happy!”

My friend gave strict instructions to the rangers that no tree in the forest was to be cut. Thus, the forest continued to grow as Elzéard Bouffier  continued to plant the seeds.

Elzéard Bouffier died quietly at the age of seventy-five.

Background: I have abridged a story written by Jean Giono (1895 – 1970), a famous French author. The original story is about seven pages long and you can find it here and also here. The story has been translated into many languages of the world. A remarkable animated version was made in 1987 by Frédéric Back (with narration by Christopher Plummer). It earned a number of awards including an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. You can watch it on YouTube.

I was deeply inspired when I first read the story and I hope it has touched you too. Elzéard Bouffier is a fictional character, but many readers were so inspired and impressed by the flow of the story that they thought that it was based on a real person. Jean Giono wrote to one reader, who was a forester, “The aim was to encourage love for trees or, more exactly, to stir the love to plant trees (which always has been one of my dearest ideas). Now, judging by the result, the aim was met by this imaginary character. The text was translated into Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, English, German, Russian, Chekoslovakish, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, Polish. I gave my rights freely for all those reproductions. One American came recently to ask me for the authorization to allow him to print 10,000 copies to distribute free of charge in America and of course I agreed. It is one of my texts of which I am the proudest. It does not bring me one cent and that is why it is doing the very thing for which it was written.” Jean Giono’s gesture made the story travel all over the world and inspire many people.

There are real Elzéard Bouffiers in India and elsewhere, whose only purpose in life is to plant trees. Later in this blog, I will post stories about Abdul Karim and Jadhav Payeng, who planted real forests.