The Maple Tree
Maple tress had always been my companion. It was probably because I was born in a house whose courtyard had a magnificent maple tree bearing yellow flowers.
My mother used to tell me she would sing melodious lullabies under the tree’s shade, with me on her lap. The rustling of the branches of the maple tree would provide the soft percussion for her lullaby, and as a child I would sleep in the warmth of all this concocted music.
I grew under its shade. I had got this strange idea that whenever I sat beneath it and revised my lessons, I passed my exams with flying color. I would chide myself pretty often for this childish notion, but somewhere deep down in my heart I strongly felt the truth of it.
“A girl does not continue to live in the same house for the rest of her life. She has to go some day to her husband’s house.” My granny’s sermon of womanhood and her life often upset me. I had to go someday, leaving my parents and all kith and kin. However, deeper was the desolation of leaving the maple tree.
“It cannot be transplanted, or we would have given it to you as a dowry,” my father would often tease me.
I could not have asked more from the almighty. When Raghu took me to his house the first time after our marriage, I instantly fell in love with the beautiful, well kept house. Only my mind knew the secret of this predilection. The window in our room opened to give me a full view of a huge maple tree and I smiled recollecting what my father had said about sending the one in my courtyard as a dowry. Yes, it looked like the same maple tree, with yellow flowers blooming in bunches all over, and they dazzled in the sunlight and swayed in the wind as if they were giving me a warm reception.
My life once again started revolving around the new maple tree. The only difference between this and the one in my house was that I could only savor its beauty standing at the window, while back at home I would run now and then to the courtyard to sit beneath it and share my joys and sorrows with the branches of the trees, which seemed to respond with rhythmic beats to match my mood.
After a tiring day in the office, I would return to the window with a steaming cup of coffee. It looked like each of my nerves was beseeching some respite; I felt greatly relaxed.
Raghu would laugh at my obsession with this maple tree, but he was a loving partner and would often give in to my whims and sit with me after dinner at the window to hear the rustling of the branches of the maple tree.
Our life was complete with Arvind’s birth. I gave up my job to nurture my son. Like me, he also grew listening to the various tales of fairies residing in the branches of the tree. His eyes would scan the entire tree, hoping to spot a fairy.
Everything was going fine, but then predestined things can never be stopped, until some huge miracles happen, and miracles do not happen in everyone’s life.
Raghu was hardly 48 when he suffered a sudden massive heart attack and left Arvind and me to face the world all alone. Arvind was eighteen when this catastrophe struck. It was precisely eighteen years after I gave up work too.
Though we were financially sound, the vacuum created by Raghu’s sudden death and loneliness pushed me to take up a job again. It wasn’t easy to face the corporate world after a huge gap of eighteen years, but I was fortunate enough to get a break in the same field Ihad worked in earlier.
I would come home more fatigued than I used to be and sit by the window, watching the maple tree. Every branch of the tree with yellow flowers provided me with great respite from all the pains and agonies my mind went through. Soon I learned to live without Raghu.
‘All good things come to an end,’ it is said; so did my stint with this city and the house come to an end. Arvind landed with a lucrative job in another city and so we had to shift base.
Well, I genuinely did not feel sad about leaving my job; but more heartbreaking was the prospect of not being able to gaze at the maple tree, my companion from childhood. Some compromises had to be made in life.
The flat that Arvind had rented was a three-bedroom flat in a posh locality. The house looked bright and airy.
“Mom, this is your room,” he said, ushering me into one of the two bedrooms with a neatly arranged cot and wardrobe.
“Open the window,” he said with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. I obeyed him sincerely and was literally jumping with joy to see a vast maple tree with proliferating branches, all holding beautiful crimson-colored flowers.
This was something that I had never expected. Arvind had taken the trouble to find a house that overlooked a courtyard with this huge maple tree.
My loneliness once again found respite as I sat gazing at the crimson colored flowers of the maple tree. They swayed again, as if singing an ode to welcome me.
Then one fine day Arvind found his life partner, Jia. The couple was busy in their own life. However, what kept bothering me was the constant bickering between them. They seemed to be having differences of opinion in almost everything under the firmament. That was disturbing indeed.
Their heated arguments, even at the slightest provocation, were eating into the peace of the house like termites would do on woodwork.
However, I would run and sit beside the window, gaping at the maple tree, and magically their arguments diluted into my ears. It definitely had some miraculous effect on me.
I was soon glad to see the couple bury their differences because they were expecting their first child.
Zara’s birth brought a remarkable transformation to the house. The couple hardly had time to fight over trivial issues. The child became the centre of attraction. After Jia resumed work, Zara would be with me for the major part of the day. I fed her, showing her the beautiful maple tree and reciting tales about fairies residing in the branches. She was too small to understand, but she would smile and laugh whenever I brought her near the window.
It wasn’t very easy to nurture an active child like Zara. At sixty-five, my bones weren’t really fit enough to bend and twist. It took a toll on me. I tripped on the door mat while trying to stop Zara from climbing down the stairs. I had fractured my leg.
A nurse was deputed to assist me in my day-to-day routine, Divya. She was a very dedicated girl and took good care of me; however, I missed the maple tree. I had to be strictly in bed for a fortnight, and that stopped me from going towards the window to gaze at my favorite tree.
At my behest, after a fortnight, Divya slowly put me on a wheelchair and took me to the window. I felt like all my lost energy had been rejuvenated. Every morning, first thing after coming, she would wheel me towards the window. I would sit there for a few minutes and savor the marveling beauty of the crimson colored flowers.
Then it felt like the whole day ahead would be spent happily.
One fine morning, Divya did not turn up at her usual time, but I had learned to transfer myself into the wheelchair and push its wheels. I sat there, gazing at the maple tree. For some weird reason, the tree was still. Some sort of gloom hung over it. It suddenly felt a bit distressing. Something in the air seemed ominous. Some intuition told me that unpleasant news was in store for me.
“Good day, madam,” Divya arrived and wished me as usual. I saw her removing some nice clothes for me from the wardrobe. Then she began putting all my clothes in an empty suitcase and arranging my medicines.
“Jia madam has asked you to get ready and wear these,” she said, wheeling me towards the washroom.
I had never learned to be inquisitive in my life. Raghu would often chide me for this apathy. “You must learn to ask questions and not take things in their own stride.”
I knew I was going to be taken out. Maybe there was a follow-up with the doctor, but then why was the suitcase arranged? Are we going out on a holiday or something? How was I going to manage in this wheelchair?
I quietly got ready with the help of Divya, all the while bizarre thoughts clinging to my already exhausted mind.
Arvind came in and said, “Mom, we are going to take you to a place that you would genuinely love.” It sounded puzzling, but I nodded.
An unusual silence filled the car as we drove, broken only by Zara’s occasional banter. I noticed that Jia was not saying anything, and experience told me that her eyes were guilt-ridden. Arvind drove without uttering a word.
We reached a two-story building amongst greenery. Two men came and slowly wheeled me inside, followed by Arvind, Jia, and Zara.
While Arvind and Jia talked to someone at the front desk, they took me to the second floor in a lift. Slowly, they pushed open the door of a room that was aesthetically arranged. Two cots were there, and on one of them was already seated an old lady; she looked like a septuagenarian. She forced a smile upon seeing me being wheeled in, and behind that smile was neatly camouflaged a melancholic tale. Her eyes spoke the truth.
“This is your roommate,” one of the men told her, and she meekly nodded to give me a welcome.
Everything seemed to be happening in a daze. When the two men lifted me to place on the bed, I caught sight of something extremely familiar near the window on the west side.
“Please take me to the window first,” I pleaded, much to their vexation, but they obeyed.
‘And then what do I see???’ A huge and well-spread maple tree right in front of my eyes with golden yellow flowers.
Just then Arvind walked in with Jia and Zara. “Mom, I am sure you will love this place. There are many in your age group to give you company. You will meet all of them for lunch in the dining hall down.”
He continued, “Divya is getting married in a couple of months and would not be able to come for your nursing. We have put Zara in daycare; it won’t be possible for you to handle her.” He was desperately trying to justify his move of having brought me here in the old age home, but he did not pay attention to the maple tree on which my sight was glued.
I could therefore decipher that he really had not taken the pain to ‘select’ this room that overlooked a maple tree, like he had done before when we both had shifted base on him getting a new job in this city. It was a sheer coincidence that this room had been allotted to me.
This coincidence only fortified my bond with the maple tree.
“Take care, we will come back soon,” they said, but I knew they would never come. This would be my home now for the rest of my life. However, it did not bother me anymore; the maple tree would still continue to be my companion.
This story was listed in featured ones in wordweavers anthology in the year 2019.