The lonely Banyan tree

During my last visit to Baroda, I went to all the places that had emotional significance for me during my growing up years. And one of those places was a Banyan tree at the entrance of the society where I grew up. My head was brimming with lots of images and I tried to assemble and hang on to every impression that was buried in the form of happy childhood. A long, unending scroll of floating world opened up before my eyes and I could almost sense a lyrical stream running through it of poetry, of tenderness, above all of vismaya or that elevating sense of wonder that our scripts talk about; beautiful symphonies of birds chirping, fakirs playing upon harmonium on the side walk, a sadhu with grave face singing a bhajan and dancing at the temple, lovers in the shadow of a tree, goats standing on their hind legs for reaching out the lone leaves on a bush, the toy seller with his colourful clay toys and the garden where I learnt to catch ladybirds and butterflies! It is strange how some memories, associations tumble out inside your head, unasked, long after you return from some place.

The banyan tree was a special place for many reasons. It was outside the compound of the garden where I played endlessly with many friends. Its huge branches were spread between the main road and the compound wall of the garden, setting perfect demarcation for our safe world. The tree was a unique microcosm and beneath it was an equally fascinating world of a cobbler; a figure we were terribly afraid of but were drawn to nevertheless. He was  a great looking tall man about forty with divine smile of a loving grandparent and very intriguing personae. The only time we got to see him smile was when we tried to cross the compound during the play and he gently cajoled us to return to the garden. We knew that though he seemed to not notice us, he always had watchful eyes and was very protective of us. His hulking wife was always around, sitting on a small chair among the sorry residues scattered all around; the battered stove, the broken bed, one and a half chairs, a few utensils, the clock inlaid with mother of pearl that had stopped working at eleven minutes past four, a few decades back on a dead and forgotten time and date. 

There was something about the cobbler that fascinated us. We were very young to understand life but even at that innocent age we could feel the distress in his beautiful eyes. He was so used to rejection and disrespect that when people brushed past him or argued with him for the money or work he always appeared unaffected. The basic needs of his family were hardly met and yet he was always a giver in his own beautiful way. His inscrutable face, the shaggy brows beneath which his grey eyes glinted coldly had seen enough life perhaps. Squatting beside him sometimes were his three children with his wife, sitting together, eating meals without exchange of a single word. The sight used to be so divine that we would peep and often wonder how they looked so content despite hardly having much on the plate. The huge banyan tree with its massive central trunk and surrounding smaller trunks hung down to spread its roots but the cobbler was never dwarfed by the tree. 

Since I could not find the old man after these many years, the curiosity kept rattling around in my brain and knowing myself well, I thought of finding out. The cobbler was long gone with his family. There was nobody around to tell me about him. Everything around the tree had changed. The banyan tree had grown further spreading its branches but it was no more the same without the cobbler and his family beside it. Its plush surrounding robbed it of its character. New roads were built near the tree and the garden that I used to play at with my childhood friends was gobbled up by the new development. 

It is painful to notice landscapes get reduced to dust! Within trice, everything is gone. And all that is left is traces and smudges. The speed at which memories, images, dreams, impressions, relationships, associations, bonds vanish is overwhelming. Sometimes, in futile attempt, we try to hold on to them through our stories, photographs, art, crumpled, handwritten notes in small drawers at the corner table of the room and preserve them, keep them safe just as they were, even when everything around starts beginning to decay. As I stood under the banyan tree, the harried pace of life around it brought me out from memory lane. The place that once was serene had silently witnessed changed times. Surrounded by screeching screams of traffic on the road, faces dodging one another in deeply condensed lives, people moving into some unheard, unseen rhythm like a controlled chaos, the Banyan tree looked precarious. There were no children, no butterflies or lady birds to catch, nobody to play at the swings made on its branches. The Banyan tree seemed lonely in its solitary confinement and when I left, I realized burden of time passed by in all these years.