My memory of my childhood is the memory of a tree. I remember sitting under a tree and trapping squirrels. The house I grew up in was a big Lutyen’s Delhi house. In the backyard there were these two mango trees. One was huge, about fifty feet tall, but it didn’t flower. The other tree, a Dusseri mango tree, had a swing under it. I used to come back from school and sit on this swing and watch squirrels. I finally devised a trap to catch them. It was a cane basket and I had put a big stick under it with a long string attached to the stick. I’d put some bread under the basket and would wait for the squirrels to arrive. The moment they did, I’d pull the string and they’d get trapped. I used to watch them through the basket and after a while I’d release them.

The squirrels gradually got apprehensive of the trap. They knew that this food was not safe. Often, the squirrels would just wait outside the boundary of the basket and look around. So, I’d have to wait doubly long. And then I’d pull the rope. You know, squirrels scamper very fast. They turn instantly. If you watch a squirrel turn, its tail goes up like a bottle brush and it just swivels its feet and turns instantly Once, I took a squirrel in my hand and it bit me. They can bite really hard, too. They look so docile, but they are quite vicious.

I also remember that the other mango tree used to get this white bug. It would come out of the root of the tree and if you stepped on it, it released a yellow liquid. I believe it’s called the ‘milli’ bug. The whole tree trunk used to look white because of these bugs which were all over the house, too. The only thing you could do was sweep them away.

Another interesting thing that happened was during the 1965 war. I was seven years old then. We had never faced a war before, so, on the advice of someone, we dug a huge trench under the mango tree. It was zig zag and you could get into it when the air raid sirens went off. The sirens would go off at three in the morning, or four in the morning, and we would rush into the trench under the mango tree. It happened for four days and I got really sick of getting up so early, so on the fifth day I took a hose and filled the trench with water and that was the end of our air-raid shelter.

Some time back I drove past that house, and both the mango trees were still standing! That older tree must be eight or ninety years old now.

Ravi Agarwal is a well-known environmental activist. He has an interdisciplinary practice as an artist, photographer, environmental campaigner, writer and curator. He is a founder member of the NGO Toxics Link.