The Tree Born With Her

The day Ananay was born, the hospital corridor was full of the usual chaos of nervous relatives, ringing phones, the smell of flowers wilting in their cellphones. Her father Vishal raval sat outside the delivery room with his hands collapsed together, too anxious to speak.

When the nurse finally came out and said, “it’s a girl” Vishal did not cry. He just sat very still for a moment, feeling something shift inside him the way the ground gives after rain.

Later that evening, cradling his daughter for the first time, he made a quiet promise to her. Not out loud. Just in his heart.

I will plant something for you. Something that grows as you grow.

He had heard about the Sadbhavna tree plantation initiative from his cousins a few weeks before. At the time, it had seemed like a nice idea. Now, holding this tiny, sleeping person in his arms, it feels urgent and necessary.

Within a week of Ananya’s birth, Vishal donated ₹3,000 and adopted a full tree in her name. The nameplate was engraved simply: Ananya Raval Born 14th March 2026. May you always stand tall.

He kept a photograph of the sapling and put it in her abay album right next to her first footprint and her hospital bracelet.

As the years pass, Vishal plans to take Ananya to visit her tree every birthday. When she is able to comprehend, he will say: When you were born we placed something alive inside of you.

The tree will be nurtured with water and fertiliser by the Sadbhavna team for the next three years. Its strong roots will be firmly in the school at the time of Ananya’s beginning. It will shade strangers, who will not know its name, but will yet rest under it when grown.

I wanted her first gift to be something that she couldn’t break, couldn’t outgrow, and couldn’t discard, Vishal stated. There seemed to be only one thing that made sense, a tree.

Of course, Ananya doesn’t remember. But one day she will be wiser than her tree tailor, full of her own life and know that she was loved before she knew it.

The Promised Between Two Friends 

Since the sixth standard, Rohan has been a best friend of Karan. They had been living in the same street of Rajkot and had shared tiffins, had appeared together in maths test and could not have been together more than a number of sleepless nights discussing anything but nothing!

At 29, life pulled them in different directions. Rohan got a job offer in Pune. Karan was staying back in Gujarat to help with the family business. The night before Rohan’s departure,they sat on the terrace of Karan’s house, the same terrace where they had spent a hundred evenings and neither of them quite knew what to say.

It was karan who spoke first.

We should do something. Something that stays here even when you’re gone. He had come across the Sadbhavna Tree plantation page a few days earlier and had been quietly thinking about it. He pulled out his phone and showed Rohan.

They decided on the spot. Together, they pooled ₹1,500 each and co-planted one tree, two names, one friendship.

The nameplate reads: Rohan & Karan Friends Since Class 6. Planted with love, 2026.

It sounds silly maybe, karan said later, “but knowing there’s a tree here with both our names on it –  it makes the distance feel smaller somehow.

Roahn, now settled in Pune, has a photo of the nameplate saved on his phone. He shows it to new friends sometimes, when they ask about home. That’s my oldest friendship, he tells them. It’s literally rooted in Gujarat.  

They video call every few weeks. And every time either of them feels the pull of nostalgia, the missing of simpler times, of shared origins and failed exams and terrace evenings they think of their tree. Standing quietly. Growing slowly. Keeping the memory of two boys who vowed never to grow too far apart.

The tree is expected to live 150-200 years. They’re sure their friendship will last as long, if not longer.

The Wedding Gift Nobody Expected 

Nisha and Dhruv’s wedding was a grand fair. There were 5 days of ceremonies, 400 guests, and there were flowers enough to fill a greenhouse. Silverware, appliances, envelopes of cash and elaborate home decor that would take years to be used were all received.

It was from Nisha’s maasi, a quiet, plain type of a woman in her 60s who always knew how to cut through the crap. She didn’t have a box wrapped in ribbon. She took with her a certificate in print as well as a miniature framed photograph of a small seedling.

She had contributed ₹3000 for a tree plantation for Nisha and Dhruv in the project of Sadbhavna. The tree’s sign said: Nishaben & dhruv Married with joy. Have roots that go deep and branches that spread wide.

At first, surrounded by expensive gifts, some guests did not quite understand it. But nisha understood immediately. She held the framed photograph for a longes moment and then hugged maasi  without saying a word 

Later he explained it to Dhruv. Everyone gave us things for the house. Maasi gave us something for the world. 

The couple since made it a tradition to give trees at every wedding in  their family and friend circle. They write a small note with each certificate. A tree for your new beginning, something that grows as your family grows.

The idea had quietly spread. Three couples in their circle have now received tree gifts at their weddings. One of them, a young woman named Falak, was the only wedding gift she remembered a year later. Everything else is just furniture now. She laughed. “ But I actually think about the tree.

Induben, for her part, is modest about the whole thing. Weddings are about new beginnings, she said. What better beginning than putting a living thing on the earth on the same day two people promise to build a life together?

The tree planted for nisha and dhruv is now nearly two years old. It is watered , fertilised and tended with care. In a hundred years, when neither they nor their children nor their grandchildren are alive to remember the wedding, the tree will still be standing rooted deep, branches wide, exactly as the nameplate wished.

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