10 Lines on Homi J Bhabha’s Love for Trees – Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha was an Indian nuclear physicist , known as the “father of the Indian nuclear programme”. He was also a tree lover and spent his valuable time in taking care of trees that were abandoned or cut down. Here, in this article we write about his love for trees.
10 Lines on Homi J Bhabha’s Love for Trees
Dr homi J Bhabha, the founder of the nuclear program in India was a multifaceted personality. He was a scientist and also a tree loving person. He was a great thinker with original ideas.
In addition to being a great scientist Bhabha was also an accomplished painter, a connoisseur of Music, an artist with very good original ideas about architecture and a lover of trees.
He belonged to the elite Club of international physicists who collectively shaped modern physics, in the early part of the 20th century.
He is believed to have started the practice of uprooting and transplanting full – grown trees when they had to be removed from a particular site instead of cutting them down.
When the construction of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) was going on in Colaba, Mumbai huge peepal and Banyan trees had to be removed to make way for roads and buildings.
Dr Baba, using huge machines uprooted the trees and relocated them to other sites , and all the trees survived.
Once on his way to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Dr Bhabha saw some workers chopping a tree at Dadar at a suburb in Mumbai.
He stopped and made some enquiries and found that the tree had been bought by someone and that it was being cut down because it was coming in the way of a road widening programme.
Baba requested them to stop chopping and on reaching BARC sent Mr Vaidya (head of parks and Gardens and landscaping) at BARC to go and inspect the tree and to bring it to BARC if necessary.
Mr Vaidya reported back saying that the tree was too badly damaged and it would not be worthwhile to attempt to rescue it.
Baba flew into a rage and asked vaidya if he would abundan a patient who was on the verge of death, if he were a doctor.
Vaidya bought the tree, took it to (BARC)and replanted it and it recovered and thrived!
The uprooting and transplanting of full grown trees requires expertise in planning and money. Bhabha organised special trucks to transport the trees in the dead of night so that the public would not be inconvenienced in any way.
After Doctor Baba had shown the way, many institutions in Mumbai and other places began to relocate trees instead of cutting them down.