Earth had not fared well in the years that Verdura flourished.

Soon after Gautham had hidden his seeds in the hollow of the peepal tree, the corona pandemic struck. Throughout the lockdown period, he was allowed to walk about in the small garden that formed part of his home, but visits to the peepal tree were banned.

To the young child, being confined to home perplexed him though he remained observant as ever. He noted that nature seemed more vibrant and a greater variety of birds came to visit their garden. And that only humans who were affected by the Coronavirus. Neither plants nor birds nor animals fell sick with the Coronavirus. It made him wonder if why.

But he liked when he heard that people were growing more plants.

During the lockdown, Humans turned their attention to home and quite a few started gardening. Stories and blogs were written about how beneficial gardening was, there were news articles about people who managed to grow a wide variety of vegetables and fruits on their large terrace gardens or in their small balconies. Online nurseries grew in number as Humans preferred to buy seeds and seedlings online. After a few months of struggle, Gautham's father too started doing his seed business online and with the help of his grandfather's gardening skills also started an online nursery.

Though too young to understand the money matters and how the growing business helped them financially, Gautham was happy for the success of his family business as it meant more plants and trees.

The Corona vaccine was discovered almost a year after the pandemic started, though it was only three years after that that Corona was pronounced as eradicated. Most heaved a sigh of relief and life continued as before.

If Nature hoped that that Man had learnt his lesson and would realise how much they contributed to the pollution with their selfish acts, it was disappointed. For, unfortunately, that did not happen. Despite the complete or partial lockdown where trees and birds flourished, Man had not learnt much from the corona pandemic and the lockdown. He was still not willing to share and care. Instead, he learnt different things, which in the long run had a disastrous result for Mankind and Earth.

The corona pandemic was not the last pandemic to hit Earth. Over the next few years, there were a series of pandemics, each deadlier than the earlier one. And while Humans struggled to develop vaccines, the faster they found one, the quicker a new virus came into existence.

It was as if Nature was trying to punish Humans.

And when Gautham saw that people had not changed despite the terrible effects of the continuous pandemics, he decided that he would be an ecologist. The people would have to be told how the Earth was being ruined.

Twenty-five years later, at the age of thirty-four, Gautham felt he had failed. Not because he had not tried but because people were not listening.

He made friends with others, who like him were worried about the environment and pollution. Together they formed a company and called themselves the Earth Warriors. They wrote research papers for the scientists, collected and analysed data for the governments, presented short films for the people and told stories to the children.

It had been done before. And their desperate attempts did not change anything.

The governments did not pay much attention to the data presented, for none were willing to give up on development and technological progress. The advanced countries wanted the developing nations to stop their progress while the poor nations felt that the rich countries to pay for the conservation efforts as it was their past actions that led to the current state. The adults wanted to blame everyone else. The rich blamed the poor for not being clean enough while the poor felt the rich were too careless.

Everyone wanted to blame someone else rather than admit that they could do something. Even a small act, such as reducing the use of plastic which would have gone a long way in reducing plastic pollution, was not adopted fully.

The children simply treated what they heard as stories and not lessons to be learnt and followed. They dutifully parroted sayings such as 'save water' or 'save trees' but could not follow the routines to adopt the same.

Gautham soon realised that there was no point in telling the world and the people how they were destroying the environment. Too few people cared about the world around them and whatever could be done by those who cared was not enough. Plants and animals going extinct was accepted, it was part of the cycle of nature, even though the rate at which common plants disappeared had rapidly increased.

It had begun decades ago, when the bees and bats and butterflies started dying out, due to disease or loss of habitat. Bees and butterflies are an important part of nature and for the cultivation of crops, many of which rely completely on being pollinated by insects. In spite of the small steps taken by amateur gardeners in providing food sources and breeding grounds for all kinds of bees, other pollinating insects and butterflies, it was not enough. More and more people planted insect-friendly plants, but large scale cultivation of genetically modified plants undid all the good work done by the gardeners.

Despite continuous efforts by various groups to educate the ill effects of such crops and the growing popularity of organic produce, much of the agriculture process did not change.

And with growing human populations and depleting resources, all governmental efforts were put into the synthetic manufacturing of food.

For Man had learnt how to synthesise the nutrients provided by Nature in the form of vegetables and fruits. And once they were successful in producing them on a large scale, Earth was never the same again.

The artificial food nutrients could be made in many different colours, flavours and textures; strawberry coloured pills with the taste of tangy mangoes and the goodness of broccoli, banana-shaped yellow pills that were chewy and had the benefits of carrots; pills that looked like grapes but had the nutrients of leafy vegetables and beans. They were easy to make and easier to eat.

As these foods became popular, attention to plants and trees dwindled. The land that once was home to forests and farms, were now used to house the growing human population.

And the climate had changed for the worse. Apart from the threat of pandemics, there were rising water levels and constant soil erosion. Without trees to hold the soil, rivers were choked with mud and caused floods. The floods, in turn, eroded the soil further. The sea levels also rose and some islands were drowned completely. Hurricanes and tornadoes became routine events and living near the seas became risky.

Not that things were better on land. Melting snow caused rivers to flood and yet the rains turned scarce and even when it did rain, the water was polluted. Scanty rainfall turned large tracts of land into sandy or rocky deserts, and the strong winds churned sand storms. Freshwater soon became a precious commodity and the world threatened to wage war over water.

The Earth Warriors continued their efforts, however small they were or whatever difficulties they face. Instead of trying to teach people, they worked towards setting an example. They distributed plants, built rain harvesting pits, cleaned up the rivers and tried to stop factories that polluted the environment. They motivated children to follow them who in turn tried to convince their parents. All were small steps but like the squirrel in the fable, it did contribute to saving the Earth.

With enough time, they might have stopped the destruction of Earth, at least postponed it, if not for another startling discovery made by Man.

It was two individual discoveries made at almost the same time.

The first was the unexpected discovery of the famed wormhole. It had scientists and common people excited for it meant interstellar travel was possible in their lifetimes.

The second discovery, the existence of a large planet, gave them a place to travel to. It was similar to Earth and orbiting a star, which was named as Arooh.

They called the planet Purpura, for it was purple in colour.