The teacher who planted forests

 The Teacher Who Planted Forests

Schools have a beautiful kind of chaos before an event.

There are teachers checking the programme schedule one last time, students carrying props from one corner of the campus to another, clubs putting the final touches to their displays, and someone always looking for something that seems to have disappeared at the last minute. It is a kind of chaos that only schools understand. Somehow, despite everything, it all comes together.

Yesterday was one such morning.

It was the 72nd Raising Day of our school, and every corner of the campus was alive. One group of students was preparing for the tree plantation drive. Another was getting ready for the cake-cutting ceremony. Different clubs were busy with their own responsibilities. There was excitement in the air, but there was also the familiar rush that accompanies every school event.

The Reading Club had its own little challenge.

Our banner had not arrived. For a moment, we wondered what to do. Before anyone could worry too much, the students quietly picked up coloured sheets, cut out leaves, and began creating a display on the bulletin board. Within minutes, what had started as a problem had turned into something far more beautiful. Watching them work reminded me that creativity often appears when there is no time left to overthink.

Just as we were putting the finishing touches to everything, our guest arrived.

Before time.

No announcement could have taught punctuality better than that simple act. He didn’t need to remind anyone to value time. He lived it.

The day began with a tree plantation drive.

As everyone gathered around the saplings, I found myself watching not the tree, but the man planting it.

There was no hesitation. No uncertainty. His hands moved swiftly and naturally, as though they had repeated those movements thousands of times before. Within moments, the sapling was in the ground. It looked effortless.

Then I reminded myself that nothing becomes effortless without years of practice.

When someone has spent nearly five decades planting and nurturing trees, their hands simply know what to do.

It was such a small moment, yet it stayed with me throughout the day.

The plantation was followed by an interactive session with Swami Prema Parivartan, lovingly known as Peepal Baba.

I had been following him on Instagram for quite some time. Like many others, I had first come across one of his reels quite by accident. I paused, listened, and kept returning to his work. There was something deeply convincing about a man who spoke so simply yet had devoted almost fifty years of his life to trees. While most people leave behind wealth or achievements, he is leaving behind forests.

As he began speaking, there was nothing extraordinary about the way he narrated his journey.

In fact, it was his simplicity that made every word believable.

He spoke about growing up in an Army family. His father, a Brigadier, was transferred frequently, and with every new posting came a new landscape. While many children remember the schools they attended, he remembered forests, rivers, hills and open fields. Without realising it, nature had become his first classroom.

Then he spoke about the people who shaped his life.

Not famous personalities.

Not great leaders.

His grandmother.

And his teacher.

His grandmother gave him values.

His teacher gave him books.

His teacher also encouraged him to plant trees.

That was the moment when the session stopped being about environmental conservation and became something much deeper.

As teachers, we often wonder whether we are making any real difference.

We enter classrooms every day, explain lessons, recommend books, encourage children, correct notebooks, organise activities, and move on to the next class. Most of what we do feels ordinary. Sometimes we even wonder whether anything we say will be remembered.

Listening to him, I found my answer.

Here was a man who has inspired millions, yet when he looked back at his own life, he spoke with gratitude about a teacher who believed in him.

One teacher.

One classroom.

One influence.

That was enough to change the course of a life.

At one point, he shared a thought that has stayed with me ever since.

If, out of hundreds of children, even one chooses to dedicate their life to a meaningful purpose, that is enough.

One child.

The number sounded so small.

The possibility felt limitless.

Perhaps every meaningful movement begins this way.

One child inspired by one teacher.

One book.

One conversation.

One act of kindness.

One decision to care.

Another idea that stayed with me was the difference between planting and nurturing.

Planting a tree, he said, is only the beginning.

The real responsibility starts afterwards.

A sapling needs water.

It needs protection.

It needs care.

Without nurturing, planting has very little meaning.

The more I reflected on those words, the more I realised they apply to almost everything in life.

Children need nurturing.

Reading habits need nurturing.

Relationships need nurturing.

Dreams need nurturing.

Even values need nurturing.

Nothing meaningful grows simply because it has been started.

As the session came to an end and the school slowly returned to its usual rhythm, I realised I wasn’t carrying home facts about environmental conservation.

I was carrying home a renewed faith in education.

For a long time, I have believed that books change people. As the teacher in charge of the Reading Club, I have often encouraged students to read, hoping that somewhere, somehow, a book will stay with them long after they leave school.

Yesterday reminded me that books alone do not change lives.

People do.

A grandmother who nurtures values.

A teacher who introduces a child to books.

A mentor who believes in someone’s potential.

And sometimes, a stranger who plants a thought that quietly takes root.

Perhaps that is how every meaningful journey begins.

Long before Peepal Baba planted forests, someone planted curiosity in him.

Someone taught him to read.

Someone encouraged him to care.

The forests came much later.

As teachers, we may never know which lesson will stay with a child, which conversation will shape a decision, or which book will quietly change the direction of a life.

But perhaps that has never been our role.

Our role is simply to keep planting.

Ideas.

Values.

Curiosity.

Compassion.

The rest, like every forest, takes time to grow.

Yesterday, we began the day by planting trees.

I ended the day thinking about the forests teachers plant every single day, often without even knowing it.