A week is no time for a tree. Till last week, me knew the gulmohur, middle aged, strong, light brown; leaved; sometimes hugged it half way when none was around, kissed it; eyes rested on a heart carved on its trunk by some lovers in love; with a lady around, me has done the same to trees with inkpens; today morning, the gulmohur is not; not news; no TV channels for bites; the cut gulmohur lay a few feet away from Karuna Hospital; you dont take trees to a hospital or put them in emergency wards with ventilators; a multi-chopped version crowds the pavement beside the walls of Missionaries of Ajmer; primary school boys and girls took the road; in class rooms they will be taught the lives of trees; their use, as if everything has to have utility to be on earth; the old Lady on a stick came along, stood by and asked no one: Is this not unfair, axing a tree? She knew the birth-time and day of the gulmohur: when people went on cycles and stray cars; there was no primary school; 'all that came after me and the gulmohur,' she said and wept; the lone mourner; felt the wood; recalled summers of gulmohurs and sometimes rosy pastors on branches. No road is to be expanded as the road flowing by the Missionaries of Ajmer is wide enough to take school kids, morning walkers, school buses and cars; what more has a road to do? the Lady asked; the gulmohur shaded a slice of the road. And then she confessed: My husband had cut a heart on the trunk when we got married at the IC Church long ago; still lives the Sunday morning quiet, not the day or year, the Lady said; none protested; 'in fact, my husband took the okay of the gulmohur and that came readily; he is not any more; he sure would have felt bad,' she told me and looked up the chops for the carved heart; the man or woman who felled the tree had sliced the heart; or maybe taken it away; lost now, certainly; nothing of it was there. Some school girls, four year olds, formed a circle round the Lady and the happening rains; opened their tiny umbrellas to keep the Lady and the cuts dry. The children did not know the Lady was in wet. A truck came, carried away the gulmohur. To where, the children asked?
Friday, August 5, 2016
To where, the children asked
A week is no time for a tree. Till last week, me knew the gulmohur, middle aged, strong, light brown; leaved; sometimes hugged it half way when none was around, kissed it; eyes rested on a heart carved on its trunk by some lovers in love; with a lady around, me has done the same to trees with inkpens; today morning, the gulmohur is not; not news; no TV channels for bites; the cut gulmohur lay a few feet away from Karuna Hospital; you dont take trees to a hospital or put them in emergency wards with ventilators; a multi-chopped version crowds the pavement beside the walls of Missionaries of Ajmer; primary school boys and girls took the road; in class rooms they will be taught the lives of trees; their use, as if everything has to have utility to be on earth; the old Lady on a stick came along, stood by and asked no one: Is this not unfair, axing a tree? She knew the birth-time and day of the gulmohur: when people went on cycles and stray cars; there was no primary school; 'all that came after me and the gulmohur,' she said and wept; the lone mourner; felt the wood; recalled summers of gulmohurs and sometimes rosy pastors on branches. No road is to be expanded as the road flowing by the Missionaries of Ajmer is wide enough to take school kids, morning walkers, school buses and cars; what more has a road to do? the Lady asked; the gulmohur shaded a slice of the road. And then she confessed: My husband had cut a heart on the trunk when we got married at the IC Church long ago; still lives the Sunday morning quiet, not the day or year, the Lady said; none protested; 'in fact, my husband took the okay of the gulmohur and that came readily; he is not any more; he sure would have felt bad,' she told me and looked up the chops for the carved heart; the man or woman who felled the tree had sliced the heart; or maybe taken it away; lost now, certainly; nothing of it was there. Some school girls, four year olds, formed a circle round the Lady and the happening rains; opened their tiny umbrellas to keep the Lady and the cuts dry. The children did not know the Lady was in wet. A truck came, carried away the gulmohur. To where, the children asked?
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