PLANTING SEEDS - THE FOREST MAN

I recently had the great pleasure of returning to what I call my second home, a place I had lived in but not visited for six years, ever since the pandemic began.

To my great surprise, I found that the vast majority of my closest friends had not taken the jab, while most people around them had. I suspected a reason but still wanted to understand, so I talked, listened, and asked questions. What I discovered truly delighted me.

I had become a medical activist back in 2014 after the trauma of watching my mother fade away in my arms from what appeared to be an SV40‑induced cancer, likely linked to her childhood vaccinations.

With me being me, I never stay quiet or miss an opportunity to awaken those around me. Over the years I had spoken openly about my distrust of routine vaccines, hoping to steer others away from repeating my mother’s suffering and my own experience of watching her in pain.

I had wanted quicker results.

Yet in my absence, those early conversations had quietly taken root.

Life itself and the events of the last few years had watered these seeds, and what I found on my return were the full shoots of awareness.

The seeds, once planted, had grown on their own, without much further effort from me.

That was my first great lesson of 2026: realising the ease power of planting seeds and then letting nature take its course.

It changed my outlook.

Our task is not to force awakening, but to plant ideas carefully, confidently, and kindly, and then to let life germinate them in its own time.

A few days ago, I came across a remarkable true story that perfectly captures this principle.

 It is the perfect allegory for the slow, patient work of renewal.

That story and short film about it follows below.

I hope it inspires you as much as it did me.

THE STORY

The Forest Man of India

Majuli Island, Assam, 1979.Sixteen‑year‑old Jadav Payeng walked across a vast sandbar on the Brahmaputra River and found hundreds of dead snakes, their bodies baked by the sun. The flood‑deposited sandbar was nothing but silt and dust. With no trees or shade, the snakes trapped by the receding water had all perished.

Heartbroken, Jadav went to the local forest department and begged them to plant trees. They laughed and said nothing could grow there. So he decided to try himself.

He was a poor Mising tribesman with no money, training, or education, yet he understood that with care, trees can grow anywhere. He began with twenty bamboo saplings, carrying water daily in clay pots from the river under the blazing sun. The bamboo took root, and he collected seeds from nearby forests: cotton, banyan, arjun, moj. Year after year he planted and tended them.

His family thought he was foolish. Neighbours said he was wasting his life. He ignored them. The bamboo spread, leaves enriched the soil, and the sand began to turn to earth. Within five years, birds and insects arrived. After ten, a young forest had formed.

He lived simply, selling milk from his cows and often sleeping in a small hut among his trees. He planted, watered, and guarded the young forest every day.

Decades passed and the forest flourished. Then, in the 2000s, wild elephants found it. A herd of over one hundred settled there. Later came deer, rhinos, and Bengal tigers. A thriving ecosystem had replaced barren sand.

In 2008 a journalist, Jitu Kalita, rediscovered the forest while covering elephant sightings. Officials confirmed it covered about 1,360 acres, larger than Central Park in New York, all created by one man in 30 years.

The story spread worldwide. Scientists studied it, conservationists praised it, and the same authorities who once mocked him honoured him. In 2012 Jawaharlal Nehru University recognised Jadav, and in 2015 he received the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian awards. He became known as “The Forest Man of India.”

Fame changed nothing. He still lives humbly within the forest, still planting and caring for trees. When asked why, he says, “The snakes died because there were no trees. I did not want any more creatures to die like that.”

Molai Forest, named after his nickname, now shelters over a hundred elephants, Bengal tigers, Indian rhinos, deer, wild boar, countless birds, reptiles and insects. A full ecosystem where once there was only sand.

For forty years he worked without help or pay, achieving what whole departments failed to attempt. When officials later suggested moving the elephants, he resisted, calling them his family.

They remained.

Today, in his sixties, Jadav Payeng still plants trees. The land is government‑owned; he has never profited from it. He only wanted to create a place where life could survive.

One person. One seedling at a time. Forty years of steady effort turned a wasteland into a living forest. His 1,360 acres stand as proof that one determined human being can change the face of the Earth.

Many of us feel helpless and powerless concerninng the world events and the mass deception we are witnessing

Jadav attempted the impossible and has proven what is possible with time, focus, determination and above all.... patience

The moral of the story is yes, plant trees, but even better, also plant seeds of information.

Talk.

Discuss.

Reason with people.

Then, let that seed of information be watered by others.

Let the seed sprout.

Let it grow roots.

Have faith that with time, 'awakening' and 'understanding' and with that freedom from our slavery will sprout.

The seemingly impossible, is indeed possible.

VIDEO 'FOREST MAN' - 15 MINS

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/a904eb_81b7697ff11348a38b07f00c8af26c47/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

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