Story Summary: The Banyan Tree by Ruskin Bond

This article presents the short summary of the story ‘The Banyan Tree’ written by Ruskin Bond from the NCERT book Honeysuckle for class 6.

The story is about a boy who lives with his grandparents in Dehradun. In his house, there is a big Banyan tree. The boy climbs the tree and enjoys his time sitting on its branches and watches the world beneath it. The boy interacts with squirrels and snails and butterflies. The boy also makes a platform sort of thing among the branches to read books. The banyan tree is older than his grandfather who is around 65 years of age. The boy finds the tree full of birds and chirping during spring time.

Well, one summer when the outside world was reeling under the shock of hot air, the boy climbs the tree and settles down on his makeshift platform with his books. The day was scorching hot, thus all people, including the gardener, were inside. From the above, a cobra snake comes out from the cactus, and soon there arrives a mongoose too. Fight between a snake and a mongoose is quite famous across the world. The boy guesses the outcome but still he braces himself for the battle of champions.

The snake is a skillful and experienced fighter while mongoose is extra fast and so swift that even cobra’s poisonous fangs go unnoticed. They both begin fighting using their skills and experience. Not so far, on the clump of the cactus two birds come to enjoy the game: a jungle crow and a mayna. While the snake and the mongoose are fighting, the birds take a dive and collide midway. The birds want to distract snake. But the next time when the birds take a dive, they miss each other, as a result the crow was attacked by the cobra. The crow jumps high in the air and falls twenty feet away and dies instantly. 

But the relentless fight of cobra and mongoose doesn’t stop until the snake is defeated. Mongoose attacks the back side of the snake and holds it tightly until it stops writhing. When the snake is dead, mongoose walks away with it into the bushes. On the other hand, mayna gives a congratulatory shriek and flies away.

All this action happens right below the eyes of the boy. That day the boy enjoys the battle of champions but realizes that nature balances everything in its own way. In nature nobody is immune. Cobra is a deadly creature, its one powerful snap is enough to kill any animal or human, but it loses to mongoose.

Message in the Story The Banyan Tree written by Ruskin Bond

The title The Banyan Tree indicates that the story is about nature, its flow, and animals that are there in the environment. What all possible animals and birds can roam about a banyan tree are given in this story and their participation in the nature is well captured. 

The theme and message of the story is that a banyan tree is a great resource of nature. It is older than the narrator's grandfather. Also, the boy becomes friendly with the squirrel, however, there were a jungle crow and a myna, and then a mongoose and cobra, but friendship cannot be done with wild animals or birds. Next message in the story is that nature balances everything. In nature's point of view no one is powerful. If cobra is poisonous but still a mongoose can kill it.