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It rained in Bangalore. Trees collapsed. And we had the typical response from the forest department. Cut and Clear.
Bangalore loves to call itself a “global city.” A technology powerhouse. A symbol of modern India. But step outside the glass offices and into its streets, and a far more unsettling reality begins to emerge. The trees – once the soul of this city – are collapsing.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally.
They fall on cars. They block roads. They injure people. Sometimes, they kill. And yet, each time it happens, the response is chillingly predictable. The fallen tree is cut, cleared, and quietly forgotten – as though nothing has gone wrong, as though nothing needs to be explained.
But something has gone very wrong. Because trees do not simply “fall.” They fail.
A Pattern Too Obvious to Ignore
In recent years, Bangalore has seen thousands of trees cut, even as authorities proudly announce plantation drives involving lakhs of saplings. The numbers look impressive on paper, but they conceal a far darker truth – no one is tracking whether these saplings survive, and no one is accounting for the loss of mature trees that took decades to grow.
At the same time, officials themselves have identified more than a thousand trees in the city as structurally dangerous – ticking time bombs waiting for the next storm.
This is not bad luck. This is not nature being unpredictable. This is what systemic neglect looks like.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
We have convinced ourselves that trees are “natural” and therefore require no management. That they will grow, balance, and sustain themselves. That intervention is unnecessary. This might be true in a forest.
But in a city – surrounded by concrete, choked by pollution, confined by infrastructure – it is dangerously false. An urban tree is not free.
It is trapped.
Its roots are suffocated under pavements. Its branches are left to grow wildly into power lines. Its structure is never corrected, never balanced, never guided.
And so, over time, it becomes unstable.
And then one day, it falls.
Meanwhile, the World Has Moved On
In cities across Europe, Japan, and North America, trees are not left to chance. They are treated as infrastructure.
Every tree is mapped, monitored, and managed. Its growth is shaped from the earliest stages. Its canopy is pruned to ensure balance. Its roots are protected from construction damage. Its health is tracked over years, even decades.
When a tree falls in these cities, it is not dismissed. It is investigated. Why did it fail? Could it have been prevented? What must change?
Because there, a fallen tree is a failure of the system. Here, it is just another inconvenience.
The Cost We Refuse to See
What makes this neglect even more alarming is what we stand to lose.
A single mature tree is not just greenery. It is a climate regulator, capable of cooling its surroundings significantly. It absorbs pollution, filters the air, and plays a crucial role in managing water and preventing floods.
Replace it with a sapling, and you do not restore that function. You erase it. Because a mature tree can do exponentially more for the environment than a young one struggling to survive in hostile conditions. And so, with every unexamined loss, the city becomes a little hotter, a little more polluted, a little more fragile.
A Collapse Without Consequence
If a building in Bangalore were to collapse, there would be outrage. There would be investigations. There would be accountability.
But when a decades-old tree crashes to the ground, what happens? Nothing. No inquiry. No report. No lessons learned. It is simply removed – as though it never existed.
Imagine if we treated our monuments this way. Imagine if a centuries-old structure collapsed, and the authorities simply cleared the rubble and moved on. That is precisely how we treat our trees.
The Real Failure
The problem is not a lack of trees. It is a complete failure to manage them. The role of a forest department is not to cut fallen trees.
It is to ensure that trees do not fall in the first place.
It is to monitor their health, guide their growth, protect their roots, and maintain their structure over time. It is to treat each tree not as a number, but as a living system. But somewhere along the way, this responsibility has been reduced to a reactive function – a clean-up operation after failure has already occurred.
A City Losing More Than Its Trees
What is unfolding in Bangalore is not just an environmental issue. It is a question of values. Because a city is not defined by its skyline or its startups. It is defined by what it chooses to protect.
And right now, Bangalore is failing to protect its oldest, most silent citizens.
The trees that once gave it shade, identity, and life are being left to grow unchecked, collapse unnoticed, and disappear without explanation. Until one day, the loss will no longer be subtle. It will be undeniable.
Because a city without trees is not just hotter or uglier.
It is unlivable.
And by the time we realise it, it may already be too late.
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