Sunday ka Funda

I don't like this tree, a hybrid tree that bears forty different kinds of fruit and flowers in varied colours.

This "sculpture by grafting", the brainchild of art professor Sam Van Aken of Syracuse University, might be a great scientific experiment and good as curiosity or art installation that it initially was, but a workable green option?

There is something about orchards with trees bearing one sort of fruit; it feels like communion, familiarity, and also to an extent hierarchy when one picks the good ones. The birds too know where to come for what they seek.

A huge tree with different varieties appears to compress nature. It is also demeaning in a way for spoiled for choice, one may either make the wrong move or the one not intended, or just walk away awestruck.

Trees are designed to be resilient, not to multitask. And some of us like our trees and people to just do one thing at a time.

As the Zen teacher told his pupil, “When drinking tea, just drink tea.”