The story of a wounded tree and his friend

 

We are a  monetizing species. We just cannot help putting economic value on whatever we come across. Earlier we would hunt for gold and other materials from the guts of earth. Then the desire shot through the ceiling and now we hunt for sand with as much seriousness like we did seek gold earlier. Sand is needed for the non-stop build-up to cater to our booming population and economies.

The 40-50 feet wide ribbon of wilderness between the two canals running parallel across the countryside would have a ribbon of wilderness. Desilting of the canals left a thick bedding of sand upon which trees, bushes, plants and grasses ran to take possession—free nature running to grab whatever sinewy pathways are available for its solitude serenade.

Walking for kilometers on the little footpath running through this untrampled part would give me the feel of walking through a silent forest. Majestic banyans, peepuls, jamuns, eucalyptus, a few silk cotton trees, wild flowers and bushes would shower me with greetings as they would do to any of the plenty of snakes hiding among these last hideouts.

I am walking on the same path now. It has been cleared. Sand is very precious now, almost new age gold. And sand mafia—just a front player for the invisible political-bureaucratic nexus—has taken truckloads of sand. The mighty earthmovers cut through the ribbon of wilderness to claw out gleaming fertile sands that have travelled from the Himalayas with the canal waters. The grasses, bushes, plants and wild flowers are gone. Just big trees are standing. They are big enough to somehow come out alive after the onslaught in the darkness. But they bear the marks of injuries and cuts and wounds. The greedy talons of the earthmovers would try to scrape every particle of dust from around them thus cutting their roots, bruising their barks, damaging the trunks. So as I walk on the bare sand on the broad avenue only big trees stand with their cuts and wounds.

The sand mafia is very powerful. It’s the corrupt governmental machinery’s invisible hand that works with legalized criminality in the dark of night. Heavy trucks and earthmovers work overnight carting away precious sand—gold like precious. You hardly have any say against them. Where will you go and complain? The place where you are supposed to go for redressal of your grievance is the very same place that is authorizing all this in the dark of night. The nighttime criminality is too strong for any feeble daytime legal action. I know all this and know the inevitability of things ultimately going the way as they open up before me.

I walk with sadness looking at the wounded barks, bruised trunks and bashed up roots of the trees still holding their balance. Sand is more precious than the trees. Maybe the oxygen-selling industry is waiting with gloating glee for a time when all the trees will be gone and they will monetize it as an economic model by selling oxygen just like now we have bottled waters once the drinkable waters vanished from the streams.

The huge silk cotton tree beckons me with its smile of pain and agony. They have taken away all the sand around its roots, cutting some major roots in the effort. It takes many years for mother earth to bloom such a majestic tree. It’s a big one. I remember its flowery welcome with its big red flowers during the winters. One had playfully dropped straight on my head as I walked under it lost in my poetic muse. A big, juicy, red bouquet of welcome as if the tree wanted to remind me hey how can you pass without appreciating all the dollops of beauty hanging on my majestic canopy. It was a beautiful sight. Red blooms covering a portion of the sky above my hand. After that the tree felt like a friend and whenever I passed under it I wouldn’t forget to give it a handshake by touching its trunk.

The friend is now wounded after the night battles for sand. It stands with agony. All the supporting sand is gone and a few main roots gone. It seems as if an angry shove of wind will see it falling in the battle against the mankind. All I can do is to place a healing palm against its bruised bark and seek forgiveness from the side of we humans.

        My tree friend wounded after the nighttime battle with the sand mafia

I am not a revolutionary. I am a poetic man who feels their pain. I know everything is futile against the darker actors. They are too strong. So I do what I can do. I reach the tree in the evening with a spade and with my poetic hands slowly start doing the work of a farmer. Do it—however small is your capacity—if you feel something wrong has been committed somewhere. Sermonizing and vain poetics won’t help. I begin putting sand around the tree slowly covering its exposed guts. It’s a tough work for those who aren’t into routine farming work. But I’m surprised that I’m managing it pretty decently. As the dusk starts building up and moon rises to give me company, I feel as if the tree is absorbing the thick swabs of exhaustion from my body. Believe me I could feel it. I worked for almost two hours and there is the friendly tree with its wounds dressed up. It looks happy now.

                             A little dressing done by the wounded tree's friend

I leave a gentle reminder for the sand mafia who will be arriving during the night. It’s a scrawling on a cardboard piece; an appeal by the tree that please leave some sand for me also. I know they will angrily tear it away. But at least the tree has a right to voice its case. I fix the appeal on its trunk and leave with a little less sad smile this time because my tree friend is waving a bit less agonized goodnight.

            The tree's gentle reminder to the sand mafia that will arrive at night

I am not sharing this little story just to get three or four likes from virtual friends whom I haven’t even met. That hardly matters to me, and shouldn’t matter to anyone in fact. It’s just done with an intention to be the voice of a tree’s agony. The message is more important. It’s done with a hope that someone else too will take a little step under the same circumstances. And that spadework seems more satisfying than writing an entire book. We have to do whatever little we can do if we feel the need. Because that’s our own emotion. No one else is liable to it. It’s our own duty to act. However small it might be.

    

A bike ride

 I'm going on my old bike. It was there when I was in college and was a suitable partner in a few typical youthful follies. But that was then and now is now. Both of us are rusted and greying fellows with the shine of wisdom seeping inside. 

A big truck has collapsed leaving a narrow passage for the vehicles from both sides. There is a young man struggling to maintain his vertical. Vehicles have to crawl to pass through the narrow opening. He means to have a lift. Who would give a lift to someone who can barely stand. An old tauji almost kicked him away shouting, 'You will fall from my scooter and die if I give you a lift!'. And now I find him almost slumped over my bike's handle pleading for a pillion ride. I repeat the old man's retort that I just heard. 

Who says perfectly sloshed men are out of their senses? He can at least smell the feeble traces of humanity in me. Some vibes, the way I speak or look or whatever. He must have felt that I carry the maximum probability of allowing him to get onto the bike. Before I realise he has marvelously heaved himself for a sloshed out pillion ride on my vehicle.

A snake has the instinct to bite. A farmer's first instinct in such cases would be to slap at least. I carry the same farming blood. So the first instinct is to give him a backhanded smash on the face. But then I have been trying to convince myself that I'm on the path of spirituality and the people on the path don't react, they respond. So I take a huge gulp of anger down my throat. The effort nearly chokes me, because anger directed into the guts literally shakes you up. With my anger thrashing my gut now, I try to talk him out of his dangerous plan to ride pillion in such a state. We are both putting our respective cases, me in irritated tones and he in slurred, pleading humanity-arising notes. The passage is blocked. A fat man is dying to reach his house -- most probably to get thrashed by his wife -- and honks his car horn very madly, 'O hello, you two, resolve your issues somewhere else. Why block the path?' Both of us give him a very angry look and to make his blood boil a bit more I prolong my arguments in the drunken case. But then many horns are honking so I have to move my vehicle with a load that is swaying in all directions. 

I stop at a distance by the side but he is already feeling safe, all secure, holding my back and almost slumped over my shoulder. I remind him that if I allow him a ride on my bike he will surely fall and get crushed under some incoming vehicle. 

Now he is crying. Fresh, salty, warm human tears on my shoulder. 'Koi kisi ka nahi hai brother. Sab matlabi hain. Only you are a real good man!' he muttered holding me to avoid a fall. How can you act against humanity if someone has just declared you to be the gem of a person? So I move with utmost caution, at a very slow speed, just by the road's edge so that he doesn't get crushed under a passing tyre if he falls. He sways like a long, thin eucalyptus sways to the wind. All this while he is muttering, 'Diamong hai diamond. ..this brother of mine!' I was lucky to drop him safe at the place of his choice. He walked a few tottering steps and then sprawled himself on earth, the ultimate bed. Maybe taking rest before hatching a plot to get another pillion ride. A young man, soiled clothes on account of dusty tumbles due to inebriated senses, out of the driving seat of his life. It was a sad affair. Very sad. I moved on with a little resigned shake of my head. The government knows drinking destroys countless lives. But then the liquor industry pays billions in taxes so the government is happy with the affairs. And then it's for people like me to carry dead drunk citizens to their destination.

Far away from the maddening crowd

 

This peacock has a hand-length of plumage. It looks quite handsome with it, something of rugged little stubble charm of masculinity. Full fantail is cumbersome. It keeps it tethered to the centricity of amorous passion, making it a love-haunted soul. It also means a lot of effort while flying, almost bum-busting effort. And the total absence of plumage also gives too much of a clean-shaven look to a peacock. But with this short plumage, it looks dapper smart and can fly to its satisfaction.

The red-vented bulbul is seen after two-three months. I believe it had gone visiting some relative. Maybe got bored with the uneventfulness of life here. Now it looks fresh with profound and impressionistic attitude.

A cat got onto the neem tree. The cat has no business there. So a crow, a couple of mynas, three-four pied starlings and some babblers raise such a din that it has to jump off the tree. The compendium of birdie platitudes starts a little chain of repercussions. The intimidating squirrel, which has grabbed the millet bowl all for itself after shooing away the sparrows, now runs away trippingly. It thinks the cat has jumped with a decisive attempt at its life. The fresh-from-journey bulbul gives it a nice chase over the wall top. The sparrows shout in merriment.                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Little Nevaan's small world

 

Nevaan’s words during the online classes are highly censored. A little soul’s words of innocence can expose mountains of elderly hypocrisies. Childhood innocence is startingly stylized for truth. It comes from a resounding depth of purity sustained by an unconditioned and uncustomized self.

One day he is given freedom to give his uncensored speech on the topic of mother. It falls with the force of classical weight on feathery modernity. ‘Mama is very good. She does all my homework. She gets very angry also and sometimes pulls my hair,’ his rare repertoire of praising words leaves his mother teary eyed. ‘I devote my entire day for his welfare and look what I get in return,’ she is inconsolable. But then she has realized that he is free in his opinions and is swimming with powerful frog-kicks in the pool of childhood independence.

So now he has to do his own homework. His mother has said a firm no to do it for him after his sting operation. He is asked to ‘write five lines on Nevaan’. He is seen very  busy for twenty minutes with the below given essay in the middle of the page:

‘Write five lines on Nevaan. He doesn’t like reading and writing. He wants to play all the time. He wants to watch cartoon TV all the time. He wants a roomful of chips.’

That marks his little summary of paradise. This candid and instamatic write-up brings more tears in the eyes of his mother. With a lyrical fluency, Nevaan is sauntering around to do full justice to his essay.

He is seen standing in front of Labrador Tuffy, the friendly pet from the neighborhood. Labrador Tuffy barks in a friendly tone. ‘How are you Tuffy?’ he asks. The dog wags its tail and replies in soft friendly barkings. Nevaan also starts doing bho-bho in varied tones. The conversation goes for about fifteen minutes. An objection is raised against Nevaan’s barking. ‘But we are talking in his language. I tried and thought he would reply in our language. But seems he cannot do it, so I changed my language to talk to him in his own,’ he replies in a prescriptive tone.

Easy times with a few birds in a little garden

 

An asian pied starling is carrying a few feet long thin strip of light fabric in its beak as it flies to its construction site. It’s a busy world engaged in making, breaking and remaking. She has an equal right to make something as anyone around. The tiny tailorbird plays mischief and takes a snipe at the lower end. The big group of house sparrows raises a laughing chorus. A brahmani mynah shrieks with delight. A peacock looks eagerly with the stately extravagance of its colors. A squirrel scuttles around with a kind of gestural vocabulary. On a neighbor’s wall an alpha male monkey moves with a haughty demeanor. Looking at him, I realize we carry a pretty hoary ancestry.

The honey buzzard hasn’t yet forgotten about its honeyed lunch. It’s circling above in the sky, maybe staring at me accusatively as I sit on a chair in the courtyard near the tree bearing the hive. I intend to write something here, but then he doesn’t know that it’s only a struggling countryside writer. He supposes that the honeybees have summoned my services to scare him. I’m thankful to him that he is scared because if he attacks I’ll run sooner than the honeybees.

There is an eerie stillness after the ripples of birdie noise let loose by the tiny tailorbird’s adventure. The little garden around me seems capable of maintaining a sustainable and dynamic paradigm. I sit with a retrospective aura, a kind of thin-veiled misty cloud around me born of engaging self-reflectivity. All of us possess multilayered individual histories shaped by the sharp edges of irony hitting at our existence with a kind of gentle madness. A gentle breeze blows with its suggestive touches at the leaves of the trees.