Jadav Payeng
In 1979, floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar of the river Brahmaputra near Jorhat in Assam, India. After the waters had receded, 16-year-old Jadav Payeng saw the dead reptiles. That changed his life forever.
“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested,” says Payeng.
The sandbar is on Majuli, the world’s largest river island, which has a population of 150,000. Since 1917, half the landmass of Majuli has been lost to erosion.
Payeng started living on the sandbar and, in a few years, created a bamboo thicket. Then he decided to grow proper trees. Over the years, a forest of 550 ha has come up with a variety of flora and fauna. Now, more than 100 elephants live in the forest for three months a year. Endangered species like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger have been seen in the forest. Vultures and migratory birds have appeared too.
The local people, whose homes were destroyed by the elephants, wanted to cut down the forest. Payeng dared them to kill him instead, because he treats the trees and animals like his own children.
Payeng has been planting trees for three decades. It was only in 2009 that Jitu Kalita, a photographer-journalist, discovered Payeng and his forest. Jitu wrote an article about Payeng and the world came to know about the unique forest created by one man. Since then Payeng has become famous. He has received many awards and the then President of India, Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam bestowed on him the title ‘Forest Man of India’. The government gave him the title of Padma Shri.
Payeng still lives in a modest thatched house and goes for tree planting every day. But he worries about the fate of the world. He knows also that in 15-20 years Majuli island may disappear altogether. He has ideas on how to protect Majuli through afforestation, but no one listens to him. The state government has so far not provided any financial assistance to him to implement his ideas.
Afterword: This story reads like a real life version of Jean Giono’s Man Who Planted Trees (Inspiring Story No.09 on this website). You can find several documentaries on Payeng on YouTube.
In spite of poverty and penury, we find people passionate about something they strongly feel about. There is a trigger in lives of certain individuals and it becomes a stage for no point of return. It becomes an obsession. The call of nature, and certain energy that remains unexplained, grips certain individuals no matter what the situation and however rough the terrain. If we are sensitive, we can come across many such people that have their own lives and are on paths not taken by the ordinary. What is required to tread such roads, as Payeng, is to nurture our passions beyond the call of livelihoods. It requires a great deal of energy, to see something beyond. The invisible becomes visible, and gives room for reality to be realised. It is beyond the realm of rituals and dogma and life becomes continuous and rhythmic flow with unprecedented parallels.