Felling of the Banyan Tree – Class 11 English Chapter 18 Notes & NCERT PDF

About the Poet

Dilip Chitre (1938–2009) was born in Baroda. He wrote poetry in both Marathi and English. "Felling of the Banyan Tree" is taken from Travelling in a Cage, published in 1980. He also wrote short stories and critical essays, and An Anthology of Marathi Poetry 1945–1965 is among his most important translations. He saw poetry as an expression of the spirit.

The Poem in Brief

The poet recalls, from childhood, how his father cleared their hilltop property in Baroda: the tenants were sent away, the surrounding houses demolished, and all the trees cut down — finally even an enormous, ancient banyan tree. The family then moved to Bombay, a city with no trees, where the banyan lives on only in the poet's dreams.

Line-by-Line Meaning

The clearing begins

My father told the tenants to leave

Who lived on the houses surrounding our house on the hill

One by one the structures were demolished

Only our own house remained and the trees

The grandmother's belief vs the father's action

Trees are sacred my grandmother used to say

Felling them is a crime but he massacred them all

The sheoga, the oudumber, the neem were all cut down

The grandmother represents traditional reverence for nature; the father represents ruthless modern "development". "Massacred" — a word used for killing people — shows the poet's critical tone.

The banyan tree

But the huge banyan tree stood like a problem

Whose roots lay deeper than all our lives

The banyan is older than anyone in the family; its roots are deeper than "all our lives" — it symbolises heritage, tradition and continuity. The details are enormous:

The felling

The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years

We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter

As a raw mythology revealed to us its age

The tree's two hundred growth rings show its age. The family watched in "terror and fascination" — the "slaughter" again treats the tree as a living being. "A raw mythology" suggests the tree carried centuries of stories, beliefs and sacredness, now laid bare and destroyed.

Bombay and the dream tree

Soon afterwards we left Baroda for Bombay

Where there are no trees except the one

Which grows and seethes in one's dreams, its aerial roots

Looking for the ground to strike.

In treeless Bombay, the only tree is the banyan that "grows and seethes" in the poet's dreams — still alive in memory, restless and troubled, its roots searching for ground. The ending expresses guilt, loss and longing.

Themes

Literary Devices

Word Power

Exam Focus

Q. Identify lines that reveal the poet's critical tone towards the felling.

Outline: "Felling them is a crime but he massacred them all"; "We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter" — words like massacred and slaughter condemn the act.

Q. What does 'Trees are sacred my grandmother used to say' imply?

Outline: The older generation revered trees as holy and living; the line contrasts traditional wisdom with the father's destructive modern outlook.

Q. Why is the phrase 'grows and seethes' used?

Outline: The tree continues to live ("grows") in the poet's memory but restlessly ("seethes"), suggesting guilt, anger and grief over its destruction.

Q. What does 'a raw mythology' imply?

Outline: The 200 rings exposed centuries of history, legends and sacred associations that the tree embodied, now laid bare and destroyed.

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