Lungs of the planet are burning, in Amazon forests. Some bloody loggers set fire to it. World leaders are paying attention, Brazil is on focus again, for wrong reasons. Luckily, Sydney is a city full of trees. The street I live in, is lined with trees and has greenery all around. I am eternally grateful.

But I love trees for different reason, and it has always been this way. I love trees, because they give us books. I mean apart from breathing the planet, catching pollution and making rain, they give us paper, which makes books.

From childwood, being a bookworm, I felt closer to books than to any human being. Well, being a loner helps in that regard. Books were the vehicles that took me far away, around the world, in the worlds of characters I could only dream of. They gave me eyes that allowed me to peer into the worlds of ancient societies from England to Tibet, modern lives of Tokyo to New York. I lived through the stories, the characters, journeys, treks, pain and horror. Who invented this miracle? Trees connect to soil, to other plants, animals, humans. They gave humans the vehicle to start what we know as the knowledge, wisdom, on whose foundations our understanding of everything grew, as we became the most powerful dwellers of this planet. From the trees, to paper, to knowledge and power, I am now able to connect the dots.

And I love trees because they give libraries, which are full of books. There was certain joy and pride carrying books from and to International libraries in Kathmandu when I was still in high school. The insatiable hunger of my teenage curiosity was only just satisfied by reading everything I could find in those libraries – literature, travel, sports, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, the story of The face on the wall in a short story from English writer E V Lucas, Rose from Tibet, Seven years in Tibet, and probably the most memorable were Tin Tin and Asterix and Oblix comic books. The British library in Kantipath moved to Maharajgunj. There used to be a Russian library in Putalisadak, a small Chinese one at Basantapur near the end of Jhochhen. The American library used to be at the heart of New Road, later moved to Naxal. All these libraries were where I used to spend most of my waking hours apart from schools, and shaped up my young mind, filling it with thrills, joy, sadness, happiness and just pure anticipation of what more is there! I was following top european soccer leagues – English, German, Spanish, French when I was barely twelve; in sync with the celebrities in tinsel towns in the US and Europe, the Rolling stones magazine used to be big back then too.

Other reason I love trees is because they give shade. Imagine sitting under the shadow of a tree on a hot day, with a cool breeze up in the hill looking down the fields in a remote village. The peace and tranquality they bring is something that cleanses your soul, the soothing breeze that seems to exist only under them is something I crave for everyday. Even one fully grown tree can turn your backyard from hot oven to a soothing cool sanctuary.

And of course there are forests. I remember walking inside the dense lushness at Cumberland forest in the NorthWest of Sydney while working for IBM is something I will always miss. Tall trees giving way to a lush walkways, hiding little ponds and bushes, it was a place for Nirvana.

Thank God for trees, the source of books.