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© Sumana Khan - 2014 |
It was a handsome tree. Tall and rough; too broad for a full embrace. Its sturdy, gnarled branches started low and spread high and wide embracing the sky; lush and well-hung with ripened fruits. Whenever the tree made love to the wind, it dispensed the sour, tangy aroma of its fruit. The tree stood by a lake; a lake so still, it seemed as if the tree and the lake could not take their eyes off each other. The tree and the lake had been this way for over three centuries.
The romance of the tree and the lake had been well-hidden by a hill. A hill with a formidable, serrated silhouette – it did not entice the adventurous explorer with the promise of green forests full of wondrous species. Oh no. This was a hill full of hardy boulders, home to scorpions and Russel’s vipers. For eons, during the summer months, the hill threw up the fiery red ball of an infant sun from behind the misshapen boulder on its right shoulder. As winter approached, the sun bobbed up gently from a cleavage towards the its centre.
The march of mankind was relentless and this grand, timeless tableau was never captured by an artist’s brush or a poet’s words. Not even when the white men from an island put a tarred road a few kilometres away. Yes, even then no one noticed the clandestine meeting place of the hill, the tree and the lake.
Indeed the three were the triumvirate of a timeless world – a global one of sorts – even before the word ‘global’ had found its modern meaning. The tree was no ordinary tree – it was famous in the non-human world. Birds in Sibera knew of this tree below the ugly hill; it was their second home. They’d swoop down in thousands in time for Deepavali, perching on every branch and twig, outnumbering the leaves on the tree. If one had the good karma to see this spectacle, one would debate – were the birds green and the leaves grey? On Sankranti day, precisely as the sun rose from the shoulder of the hill, the birds would lift in one wave, as if a fisherman’s net were thrown in air, and disappear over the clouds with promises to return made in their bird song.
The lake was no ordinary lake. She was actually a great river – born below the earth capped by the hill. Back when the tree was young (and a bit weak), the river, a mere sweet trickle dancing over the boulders, had fallen in love with the tree – there was a certain pride, something intimate about this tree’s outstretched branches. The river had made its way to the tree, pooling around it, nourishing it and nourished by it, only to disappear below the earth again and emerge down south in a roaring torrent, feeding an endless vista of paddy fields.
Decades after the white men returned to their island, progress was rapid, everyone noted. Towns crept closer and closer to the triumvirate. The narrow road laid by the white men was now deemed arterial. It had belching iron monsters hurtling by and soon, it was clear it had to be widened. An engineer came to survey. He was no ordinary engineer. He was a gold medalist from the state university. Now they don’t give away medals to just about anyone. The engineer had a knack to think ‘out of the box’.
He said, yes we should widen the road. But that’s a temporary solution. Draw a railway track here, and that’s a permanent solution. Look at that barren hill, he pointed out. Break those boulders, and you’ll get your jelly stones for the repair work. It is cost effective, he reported. Bravo! Bravo! The newspapers applauded.
They broke the hill. Oh they broke the hill mercilessly. They brought machines that stabbed and drilled and pounded and ground. Every proud boulder that had stood watching over the horizon for centuries was now lying in a million pieces on the railway track. Yes, the boulders that had tasted only the purest of rain were now showered by urine and excreta from passing trains. Sure the hill fought back – some workers were killed by dislodged rocks; the vipers took care of some others as did the scorpions. But all its defenses were no match for the determined humans.
As the hill crumbled, the tree and the lake no longer had shelter. An important businessman glimpsed at the pair. He was no ordinary businessman. He was what they call a v.i.s.i.o.n.a.r.y. This was where he would set up the factory, he decided. A factory where he would manufacture Something Important For Modern Life. It was a stroke of genius everyone said. With the railway track and the road just across, he had cut down his transportation costs. Bravo! Bravo! The newspapers applauded.
He set up his factory quickly. It let out black smoke through towering chimneys. And boy was he glad about the lake – so convenient for waste disposal. Yes he had agreed to setup a treatment plant - but he had put that off for three years. He promised the government that he’d do it as soon as his business turned over profits. Of course everyone accommodated him. He was generating jobs. And also, he had pulled up the real estate value of the place singlehandedly. A private builder marked up sites and set up the place for sale.
The birds did not return after the Year of The Factory. The lake, filled with filthy froth and foam, bubbled and hissed around the tree. Her fish, her algae, her tadpoles and all the life she held in her liquid womb were floating carcasses. The poison went into the earth, fed the paddy fields, entered the seeds, reached homes and eventually blood streams. New diseases emerged. The doctors were puzzled. These were no ordinary doctors. They had studied the human body for ages. This is all because of stress, they said. Exercise more, they said.
The lover of the river, the mighty tree, stood gauntly still drinking the poison from her. Its leaves turned a diseased yellow, and one by one, branches trembled and fell away. One fine day the businessman shut shop. It was not viable he said. He sold the factory to the real estate man. The real estate man figured he could make at least four more sites if he closed the lake and chopped the tree. The lake was now a stinking puddle anyway, and the tree was clearly rotting away. Not a big problem. A few loads of sand and an electric saw should do the job.
In two weeks, it was as if the tree and the lake had never existed. After years of relentless drilling, the hill too had disintegrated – it was a mere stump compared to its past glory. But that’s the problem with humans – they see only the surface. They had no idea what was brewing beneath. Beneath the hill they had plundered. Beneath the lake they had choked. Beneath the tree they had hacked. They did not see the fracture line on the hill that seemed to disappear beneath the earth. Indeed, the fracture had reached a certain meeting point - where the roots of the tree had snaked to the river for the first time. The river now flowed like tears on the senseless roots. The triumvirate, injured, battered, but not dead... yet. It was time to fight back.
Houses were being built on the sites, and they needed jelly stones. Come to me, the hill beckoned mockingly. Of course the humans would bite the bait – there were plenty more boulders waiting to be powdered, and plenty more monstrous houses to be built. Every time they drilled, the vibrations went deep down, shifting a fault line ever so delicately.
A decade went by. The hill was gone. Completely. The place was now an affluent neighbourhood – the city had grown around it. It was a prosperous city with tall, important buildings and potted plants.
It was just another ordinary morning when the fault line grated. The city was razed in a matter of seconds. Death in thousands. The geologists came running. They were no ordinary geologists. They’d listened to the earth’s heartbeats for years and years. They shook their heads and said this place is no good. The aftershocks are too many.
People moved away. Who’d want to live under such a death threat? Every other day the road shifted swallowing cars. Or someone would wake up to see a sinkhole under the bed, hearing the whisper of a tearful river. Soon, the prosperous city became a rubble of a ghost town.
The fault lines are still rubbing. The hill is rising again. Slowly. Maybe a millmetre a year. The river, purged off her poison, is gaining strength. But she won’t come up anytime soon. Oh no. She has to bring her timeless love back to life. The roots, yes, they are stirring under her ministrations. On the day when you and I are mere dust specks, the triumvirate shall emerge again...just as it was meant to be.
© Sumana Khan - 2014