Jadav Payang and his Eden Garden

An Ordinary man and an Extraordinary achievement:

"And out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food...” Genesis 2:9

It is believed that God created the earth from sound; then came Eden the garden , followed by animals and human beings. And then the slow   and  never ending destruction started because God left everything in the hands of man

I have not seen God and I believe you are also in the same league. But, I came to know about Jade Payeng whose nick name is ‘Mulai’. Who is Jadav Payeng?

HE is a CREATOR. Then is  he God? No. Not at all. God can create anything with his magic wand within a millionth of a second. On the other hand, our Jadav had to work hard with hands; had to walk miles and miles to bring plants; had to sweat a lot, to water them and had to spend all his life to care them. The Result is another Eden garden on the sandbars of the river Brahmaputra for tourists and film shooters!

Everything started when he saw with anguish that trees had been wiped away by floods leaving dead animals and reptiles on the bare sands. The devastating sight made him adopt the land. He settled there with his family who also adapted themselves to living in the forest. He started planting bamboos. Initially Forest department supported him.

Later on, he planted varieties of trees on his own choice with native wisdom and brought red ants from his village to enrich the soil. It paid him well ; the soil became vibrant and fertile. The magic happened without any wand; the bald shores of the river slowly changed into dense forests. Forest officials, when found this man-made-forest in year 2008, got stunned at the amazing sight: a dark deep and lush green cover with thousands of trees on the sandbar; along with  about 115 elephants visiting the place every 6 months; four tigers and hundreds of deer roaming all over the ‘Mulai Woods’ with three happily settled Rhinoceroses. Thank God! No human beings!

Mulai is about 50 years. Like God, he also doesn’t have any basic schooling. But he dedicated 30 years of life to create  the 550 hectares of wood and care  for  the trees.

Now he is adept in ‘silviculture’.

We owe some of our life to him. Yes! May   be a zillionth of the oxygen we inhale, comes from his trees.

Shall we honor him with ‘Bharat Ratna’? I don’t think so. Let us leave these things to our Netajis with 2Gs and 3Gs!

Note on ‘adopt’ ‘adapt’ and ‘adept’:

It makes me think twice before using these words. Because I am not adept in using words.(efficient in)

But our Jadav ia adept in creating forests. He is now ready to extend the forest to a thousand hectares.

Mrs. And Mr. Sethia adopted Dinesh Kumar as their son. (Take ,

approve legally).

Jadav Payeng adopted the sandbar to grow bamboos.

Dinesh Kumar, a twenty years old young man, easily adapted himself to the new environment.(changed himself  appropriately)

Jadav’s family also adapted to living in woods.