The Man Who Made Plants Write – 1
In The Man Who Made Plants Write, internationally renowned poet and critic Sumana Roy translates Jagadish Chandra Bose’s revolutionary writings on the environment.
Bose (1858-1937), a scientist and polymath, devoted much of his time to presenting a sophisticated vision of plant communication. He suggested that trees had an ‘unvoiced life’, their own idiom as it were, a way of responding to each other and to the world around, which could be recorded as a ‘script’ with a crescograph. In his essay collection Abyakta – ‘The Unsaid’ – Bose implored his readers to tune into the ‘airborne sounds’ these beings emitted and to the ‘endless music sung everywhere’.
More than a hundred years after Abyakta‘s publication, Sumana Roy, in a translation that is nuanced, tender and rich in lyricism, brings to readers Bose’s legacy – his body of work engaging with the natural world’s innate intelligence.
His views, dismissed as idiosyncratic and unscientific when he was alive, have only gained in significance over time, as climate experts call for a plant-sentience-led approach to conservation. By provocatively challenging a hierarchy of living beings where flora and fauna get relegated to the bottom, and by reminding us of the need to approach the issue of sustainability through the lens of compassion, Bose’s work remains relevant, urgent and, in many ways, prophetic.
Author Sumana Roy, says, ‘I had come to Jagadish Bose from a trivial piece ofinformation, directed by a hurtful comment from a former colleague who hadlinked my affection for plants with my childlessness; he’d made a leap to Bose,diagnosing the scientist from suffering from a similar condition. I began readingBose obsessively, and then, because I was writing about him in my books, startedtranslating him in bits and pieces. In March 2023, though, I realized the need totranslate his book Abyakta— it had been a hundred years since its publication, anddiscoveries by scientists, such as plants “crying” when they were not watered for twodays, had gripped the popular imagination. But Bose’s name had been completelyoccluded from this discussion. Plant intelligence and plant sentience, categories usedabundantly today, had been the obsessive focus of his interest, propelled by which hehad designed instruments and experiments. I had to ferry this man’s thoughts to aworld that had ignored him. And hence this book.’
Dharini Bhaskar publisher, HarperCollins,says, ‘To publish Sumana Roy has been adream we’ve held close. She is one of India’s most original thinkers, a writer of deepsensitivity, and a poet of depths. InThe Man Who Made Plants Write, Roy’stranslation of J.C. Bose’s essays, she approaches a subject that is urgent and relevant—the inner lives of plants. She reminds us that this planet we inhabit is one of richinterconnectedness, where every leaf, every branch is in communication with thehuman world. Roy’s translation is nuanced, layered and, most significantly, gentle—urging the reader to listen in, to pay attention, to tread softly. We, at HarperCollinsIndia, are so proud to publish this book—with Niladri Mahajan’s photographs ofBose’s instruments and the script that the polymath made plants write.’
About The Author
Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) was a pioneer in radio waves, electromagnetism,and plant science. His books published in English include Response in the Livingand Non-Living (1902) and The Nervous Mechanism of Plants (1926).
About The Translator
Sumana Roy is the author of How I Became a Tree,Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries and Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal, among other books.
Harper Collins India
Rs 599
Pages : 136
