As a child, I never had a fascination for dolls. I was more happy gazing out of the fourth floor window of my Mumbai flat. It overlooked a long, grey water pipeline and tin roof tops of shanties that lay beyond. The view was not exceptional, except for the orange flames of the Gulmohar trees, which shrouded everything else that lay beyond it,with a fiery veil. This was the view from my bedroom. If I looked out of my living room window, I had another favourite sight. The lone jamun tree which stood at the extreme corner of the car park. It had a fat, brown trunk and overstretched arms...the dark green of the leaves spilling over into the next compound too.
I don't know why I recall these trees now. Except maybe, they remind me of how curious they made me as a child. The Gulmohar tree perplexed me with their cycles of orange and bare. I remember eagerly waiting for the bright green buds to split open and ooze out the red and orange. They stayed on for a whole summer, plastered against the pale blue of the sky. When they were doused by the early June showers, they softly dropped onto the wet mud, only to be swept away into a green wheel barrow the next day.
The jamun tree was another story. It stood like a lone pillar, strong, mighty and glorious. The purple of the berries often stained my skirts, hands and teeth. On quiet summer afternoons, children often crept over the compound wall to throw stones and bring down berries. But there was something more to this tree. It looked different every time I stared hard at it. While it's true that I might have been enamoured by Enid Blyton and her wonderful spiel of faraway trees, this tree often made me wonder. Its mighty trunk and overarching branches convinced me much like Blyton, that there was something magical about it. It was like nothing else I had seen around in my little urban world.
Lately, I've realized that I often doodle trees. I even seem to stop by trees, to keep my palm on a chipping bark. There is a magic which tingles me for moments. I don't know what it is...but it is there.
Watching trees as a kid taught me something. It wasn't just the magic and wonder, it's probably something more...it made me... curious, patient, dreamy? I can't find the right word to say what it taught me, unknowingly. May be for now I'll just call it... hope.
6 comments:
but every time the faraway tree seems really far away. other foliage may be mere consolation, but they are dusty too, parched, sick at the base. perhaps they need a shower, a one that defiles them. :)
accidental visitor, who choses to be so.
Facing all the four seasons bravely..you are right it must be HOPE.
@ anonymous: thanks for visiting my blog.showers are intermittent & unreliable :)
@kavita : thanks for re-affirming my belief :)
wow!! never really thought of trees that way. Now that i read this I realise it's hope that they give us more than anything else..
what a lovely post! melancholic but beautiful. I love trees myself - i like how they gnarl and spread and stay. But mostly i think my fascination began when i read Wuthering heights.
@ JD: I'm glad you might look at trees a little differently now :)
@ Goldbug: I couldn't agree more with you on Wuthering Heights and trees. Thank you so much for visiting my blog.
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