Which side will the wind blow?

One day two youngsters were discussing their career options, standing under a tree, when it suddenly began to pour. The heavy showers were accompanied by lightning that tore through the sky.

The black firmament threatened the two youngsters with her thunderous voice. The twosome immediately took to their legs. They ran towards the first available shade before continuing with their discussion. In a while the skies eased, revealing their true colour.

The two youngsters started walking away, wondering aloud about the funny and sudden climate changes.

“Ask the weathermen and they will blame it on global warming. Ask the scientists and they will blame it on the abuse by common man. Ask the common man and he will blame the politician. Ask the politician and he will blame the media and ask the media, they will say that the entire system is corrupt,” opined one of them, while the other burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“How true,” was all that he could manage.

As the youngsters walked away, the trees began conversing with each other. The sudden lightning had caused them to understand the conversation of the two human beings and they could also hear each other talk.

The trees began conversing with each other...

They now had elevated levels of consciousness. The leaves had heard most part of the conversation between the youngsters and began thinking.

One tree’s leaves asked the others, “What have we been doing? We never thought of a lot of things in life. Hope all of you heard what I heard. These two young boys know so much.”

The leaves of the other trees nodded in agreement. An old tree in their midst spoke up gently.

“If we can predict the direction of wind our leaves can be better prepared to face the fury of nature,” she felt.

“Did you hear the boy say, that it was becoming difficult these days to understand which side the wind would blow,”  said one worried youngster.

“Yes. He also mentioned that we must be prepared. The future may not be the west. It seems the wind looked favourable eastwards. The current trend is to follow the east,” the leaves of one smart tree observed.

The leaves were playing and re-playing the conversation word by word. As word started spreading and the trees were getting used to the process of thinking, some unspoken words got added to the conversation, increasing the vocabulary of the trees.

Days passed and the trees picked up words from human beings who sought shelter under them. More conversations regarding the wind’s course were discussed. The west, it seems was becoming too exorbitant and future development will happen in the eastern direction.

“While some humans use the word ‘wind’, some say ‘current trend’. I have also heard the word opportunity. Maybe that is a different kind of wind,” the leaves of the old tree said.

But the youngsters wanted to know how prepared they could be to face the change that human beings are talking about.

“After all, they have been thinking longer than us. So if they say, even we must be prepared,” told the youngsters to the older trees.

“Maybe we all can tilt 15 degrees in the western side and when the wind starts blowing we will be in a better position to face it,” predicted one intelligent tree.

The rest of them hailed his intelligence and analytical ability and went to him for prudent advice. A few weeks later, a huge storm unleashed itself in the region, felling many trees. Some of the trees that were lucky enough to withstand nature’s fury had lost all their leaves and most of the stems.

Hardly a few leaves were sticking on their stems and after the storm passed, they slowly recovered from the shock.

“How do we re-build ourselves from here? None of our strategies worked. May be we should try an out-of-the-box thinking,” said one leaves trying to overcome his initial shock.

“Maybe we should ask the root, as they seem to have survived the storm better,” the other one offered.

They called out to the root that was partially jutting out of the ground. The soil around him was washed away by the steady downpour.

“Which direction were you tilted, east or west, when the storm hit the place,” they asked him?

The root was confused. 

To him it did not matter...