The jungle had always been a symphony — chaotic yet harmonious, wild yet wise. But unknown to the nine teak friends, the outer rhythms of the world had begun to change. Slowly at first, then like a storm.
The whispers came first — the low growl of machines, distant but unsettling. Then the crashes. The shouts. The metal beasts that belched smoke and tore through the land like hungry predators with no natural enemy.
The jungle was flattened — trees that had stood for centuries reduced to dust in hours. What once echoed with calls of langurs, chirps of kingfishers, and rustling leaves now rang with the clang of construction and the impatient honks of traffic.
A highway was being born — not of necessity, but convenience.
Our nine friends — still standing tall with a few more lucky ones — watched in disbelief. They were just outside the marked boundary. Just safe enough. Just far enough. But just close enough to witness it all.
They saw their friends — proud banyans, gentle amaltas, wild sal trees — get chopped ruthlessly. First, the branches were pruned, leaving them awkward and bare. Then, the trunks fell with sickening thuds. But the worst was the end — when humans tied thick ropes around the stumps and pulled from both ends. The earth groaned. Roots tore. And trees screamed — not in sound, but in silence that echoed deep within the surviving few.
Birds circled in panic, unable to find their nests. Squirrels ran aimlessly, their homes lost forever. The ground once rich with insects and fungi began to dry and crack. The songs of the jungle were replaced with the grind of tires, the hammering of drills.
Another scare came.
A new path. A service road.
More trees fell. More friends gone.
The nine stood frozen in time — witnesses to grief, survivors of a massacre. The air grew warmer. Drier. Dust danced in thick clouds. The scent of wild jasmine was replaced by petrol fumes. The cool canopy turned into a furnace of glass and steel.
Once, they found peace in the purr of a leopard and the chatter of monkeys. Now, it was the relentless hustle of humans — footsteps, ringtones, traffic.
They weren’t spared because of compassion. No, they survived because someone decided the space they stood on was better suited for a wide footpath between a highway and a service road.
And so they stood, the last guardians of a lost jungle.
Their roots still deep.
Their hearts still hopeful.
But something had changed forever.
To be continued…
