The childhood bond that I developed with gum from the babul tree (gum arabic tree) is still intact and unbreakable.
Whenever I see a babul tree, I go down memory lane. In those days, we did not have the synthetic gum and adhesives that are widely available in the market today. The gum that we used was plant-based. It had to be procured manually from trees and was not readily available in stores.
In my neighbourhood, neem, peepal, tamarind, banyan and babul trees were quite common.
The gum of babul can be quite sticky, and it catered to all our needs, be it gluing together torn pages of textbooks or notebooks, pasting passport size photos on documents, or even putting up posters on walls.
During the summer holidays, my friends and I would embark on a “gum hunt”. When we spotted a babul tree, we would do a thorough scan, from the base of the trunk to the highest branch we could see.
At the very first sight of gum, we would vie with each other to get it first. When the lumps of gum were spotted on high branches, we did not hesitate to climb up although we suffered scratches and bruises in the process. Our gum hunt on about 10 trees would yield us sufficient glue for the year.
At times, if we could not find the lumps of gum, we would make two-inch incisions on the bark at the base of the tree. A gel-like substance would ooze out and, after a week, we would gather the lumps of gum. The dried gum was crushed and stored in bottles or coconut shells. When some water was added, it made for excellent glue.
There are fewer babul trees today. As our lifestyle is increasingly becoming artificial, the natural gum has no takers and synthetic ones reign.
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