Neem gach/Neem Tree by Bonophool or Bolai Chand Mukhopadhyay (1899-1979)

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Neem Tree

Some strip the bark and boil it.

Some rip off the leaves and grind them.

While others fry them up in hot oil.

To smear it on itches and skin rashes,

Infallible in skin problems.

Many also eat the young leaves

Sometimes even raw,

Or fried with egg plant.

Very helpful for the liver.

So many break off the young branches and chew them – keeps teeth healthy.

The traditional healer cannot praise it enough.

One growing next to the house makes the wise happy.

They say, the breeze blowing through a Neem is good, let it stay, do not cut it;

So no one cuts it, but no one looks after it either.

Rubbish collects about its base.

Someone paved around it – another kind of rubble at its feet.

Suddenly one day, a new person arrives

They gaze upon the tree with wonder, they do not strip off the bark, rip off the leaves

Or break the branches; they just gaze!

They say, ‘Lovely, how lovely the leaves, how beautiful!

And the clusters of flowers! Like stars that flicker in a sea of green!’

After looking on for a while, the person goes away.

Not a healer of the body, but of the mind – a poet.

The Neem tree wanted to go with him; but in vain, for its roots were deep.

It remained in the pile of rubbish behind the house.

The same as the domesticated, docile daughter-in-law next door….

Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azadirachta_indica