A Forest That Came Back

When the restoration work began on our panchayat land, most of us thought it would end like the other schemes — a photograph, a few saplings, and nothing after the monsoon. Six years on, there are trees taller than me where there was only stone. The well behind my house held water through last summer for the first time in eleven years. I still do not fully understand how the trees did that. But I have stopped arguing about it.