THE TAMARIND TREE

There she stands, in the corner of my huge building complex, aged yet strong, her withered bark curled and crusty. A strong sturdy tree she once was and decades have not diminished that power. But there is a deep sorrow in her form these days as memories of years gone by creep up, causing her wrinkled brow to frown with disdain.

Once, long, long ago, there was a wild forest around her. She was one among many and her days were filled with the merry singing of birds in her hair, the gurgling of a little brook at her feet and the prancing of tiny animals up and down her trunk. As seasons changed, the world around her changed from green to yellow to red. 

She revelled in it and in the Artist of Life who had created her and her companions. She basked in the hot summer sun, shivered when gusty winds swept around her body and teased her hair, smiled at the rain pouring down her back and waved out with dainty hands to the clouds that brought relief to the scorched earth.

Birds would seek refuge in her, making homes for their tiny ones in the nooks and crannies of her magnificent body. She protected them with the fierce love of a mother for her child. And delighted with the mother birds when the fledglings took their maiden flight, falling clumsily to her lower branches.

Often, squirrels ran up and down her trunk, calling out to each other as they  played ‘Catching Cook’ and ‘Hide-n-Seek’ in gay abandon. They would nibble nuts and berries hidden in her cavities for the winter nestling contently, safe in her warmth.

Ah, those days were long gone and so were the birds and the squirrels. Her companions had been chopped down mercilessly to make way for the concrete jungle that was homes to the human race. ‘Why did you spare me’, the tamarind tree seems to cry to them. ‘I can’t bear this life’. 

I watch her weighed down by the abundant fruit she yields every summer and can almost feel her sadness. It bespeaks of the horror that is called progress. Development at the cost of Life.

The children of my complex run to the tamarind tree every morning and pelt her with stones. She endures their unkind ways because she knows they desire her fruit. Maybe that is why I am still alive, she muses. Because I am useful to them. My friends were not needed anymore. And not for a single moment did they consider the life of those innocent, helpless birds and squirrels.

Once in a blue moon, a band of monkeys come and assemble in her branches. They too are out for the fruit and leaves, it appears. The tamarind tree shows delight to see a shadow of her former life reappear but it is short-lived. Having used her, they leave without even a ‘Thank You’. They ravage and plunder just like their human cousins.

Still, the tamarind tree smiles her sad smile as she awaits the final stroke of doom. It almost seems as if she wants it now and I can understand why.

When you are unwelcome, you do not want to prolong your stay. You hope for a better place, a warmer welcome somewhere else. Life is like a prison for a living entity like her. Life hurts when she knows the future of human life without her and her kind is destined for extinction. They will realize their error too late, she fears. 

Can they survive without her? Maybe Yes. But without her kind? Certainly and absolutely not!

UPDATE: This summer, our beloved tamarind tree bid farewell to us. She was ravaged by white ants at the bottom of her trunk so we had to give her the axe.  Now all she is worth is her price as firewood.

There she lies covered with weeds.