A grown tree in Mylapore still in its ‘baby diapers’

This is complicated: one wants to gently hold this grown tree, one of moderate age, at Karpagambal Nagar in Mylapore by its trunk and give a squeeze of commiseration; or a bear hug that would sap the grief out if it (that pun slipped in unnoticed). Both acts of kindness have been rendered difficult by the very tragedies that warrant this dramatic, physical show of kindness.

The tree seems to be taking a disturbingly transverse route in the air. Before going to the second problem, a question. How comfortable would you be if you have outgrown the school uniform, the convocation hat earned by a college education, but not the baby diaper? Under your slick chino trousers that now-anachronistic piece of inner wear, which was meant only for an exigency, continues as if time has stood still. And time seems to have stood still for this tree: it still wears what it had to in its babyhood: the tree guard.