Where One Tree Becomes a Forest! - GetBengal Story
If you ever find yourself on the other side of the Hooghly River, away from the incessant honks and commotion of Kolkata, you will find Shibpur, where a whole new world waits quietly for you - The Indian Botanical Garden. Spanning almost 270 acres, it is almost more like a living museum of green history than what we would call a garden. Established in 1787 by Colonel Robert Kyd of the East India Company, the initial aim was for practical plants growing for the economy of the empire, but ultimately all of that has only just become. Today, it is now a refuge of over 12,000 plant species, an educational and conservation research facility, and a place for generations to visit just for some clearer air.
Standing at the center of it all is the crown jewel of the garden, the Great Banyan Tree. Calling it a tree seems almost an understatement. Estimated to be over 250 years old, the banyan has spread aerial roots out to over 3.5 acres, thus creating the appearance of a woody plant, resembling a forest, for its visitors. When visitors venture into the tree, they walk in the woods, only to find out that every single "trunk" is actually part of the same organism. The Great Banyan is not only alive but thriving, despite what nature has tested it through. In the 1920s, lightning struck the tree and a fungal disease destroyed its main trunk. If that had happened to most trees, surely that would have been the end. But not this giant. This giant adapted. Its thousands of prop roots grew deeper into the soil and it carried on as if it were invincible.
Today, it has more than 3,500 such roots and is so large that an entire road—appropriately named “Great Banyan Tree Avenue”—creates a circumference around its outer boundary that is over 400 meters in length. A whole ecosystem flourishes in and under its canopy—birds nesting, bats hanging peacefully, snakes moving through the brush, and insects buzzing melodically. This giant tree does not just grow; it gives life, offers shelter, and provides continuity.
For travellers, there's something humbling about standing under its canopy. There is a stillness at all around, as if the banyan tree absorbs a millennium of whispers. Botanists and scientists study it as a biological wonder, but to most visitors it feels like something altogether different: an ancient sentinel, keeping watch over time itself. Even with the hard years of surviving in the natural environment, the tree is still growing, still spreading, serving up entire displays of resilience.
Colonial impetus may have generated the Indian Botanical Garden, but today it belongs to the people and to nature. And in this Garden is the Great Banyan Tree, a symbol of endurance and continuity, a living marvel that has merged history, science, and legend into one amazing story.
