Living like an Old Monk!
History brings the essence and flavour of the older days. And whenever we visit a historical place, it drives us to nostalgia. But mostly the historic places bear the non-living or inanimate things, such as monuments or a destroyed city or the things used in the past. Visiting museums are the aptest example of this.
But think once, wouldn’t have it been amazing if we could see something living that bears the trace of history? Wouldn’t have it be wonderful if we could gaze at some living object that bears the sign of the ancient period? Tough to find? Well, it is. But not impossible!
A Bonsai Tale
Yamaki Bonsai— a Japanese bonsai currently residing at the United States National Arboretum in Washington DC is a 396 years old tree that is a living signature of history. We often forget that trees live more than human beings and some of them even live for centuries. Yamaki Bonsai is such a tree. A plant has gone through a terrible historical event, which impacted human civilisation to a tremendous extent. The tree, for the first time, was planted in the year 1625 in Japan. The tree, currently at the US museum, was named after its donator's surname, a bonsai master of Japan Masaru Yamaki, who gifted the tree to the USA government in 1976.
How was it revealed?
Until 2001, it was unknown to the world that this tree was one of the very few survivors of the Hiroshima bombing of WWII. The bombing caused the death of almost one and a half lacks Japanese people. But fortune is something undefined! The Yamaki family had survived the bombing, luckily, and they had saved the tree also. When there was such heavy bloodshed that even human lives were losing their value, the Yamaki family came forward to save the life of a tree that was carrying the living history of long three centuries.
Where to Go?
The tree, however, represents an international friendship between The United States and Japan, but before a member of the Yamaki family visited the museum, nothing about its history was known. Today, if you may find its history of even surviving after the earth-shocking bombardments of Hiroshima in the museum's website (bonsai-nbf.org), if interested.
