The Beginning of the Journey

Even a journey that covers thousands of miles should have a single step to start with. When the journey is of one’s thoughts and ideas, this step will be an incident or a person that left ever-living marks on his or her mind. And there is every chance for that specific incident to be the one that happened during childhood days, because even a minor incident happened on those days will influence the life and thoughts of the persons for a long time and sometimes whole life. It was a large Mimusop’s Elengi tree, which was there in the south eastern corner of the compound where my house was located, that influenced me immensely to love and care nature. Or in other words, I can say that it was that large tree that evoked the nature lover in me and made me to fight for many environmental issues.

Elengi tree was a dwelling for many living things. There were crow’s nestles were there and there was a few owls on the next branch. Several bats were seen hanging down from the top most branches and there were many other small creatures that used the large tree as their house. It was an ideal habitation where many creatures lived together, although with a little bit of petty quarrels and fighting over petty issues.

Elengi is a flowering tree and the fragrance of the flowers is too strong and piercing. When the small flowers blossom in bunches, the fragrance will get spread in the atmosphere and one can experience the same even from a distance of a few meters. The smell of elengi flowers is identified with the arrival of angels in the fairy tales of grandma. Usually the flowers blossom during winter and during monsoons. The moisturized evenings during these periods will have the fragrance of elengi flowers as an added attraction. The little mind used to flourish with romantic thoughts of fairies and angles during those wet evenings. The cool breeze coming from the rivulet that forms the northern boundary of our compound used to give more dimensions to the thoughts. I used to get evolved to the little prince who is waiting for the princess from the fairyland. The waiting may continue even after the twilight disappeared and the darkness appears.

On those moments the Elengi tree will become a castle filled with a lot of wonders and hurdles to cross before reaching the room where the little princess is sleeping. Entire night I will be busy with entering inside the castle. My dreams and thoughts will be filled with a lot of adventures then.

Monsoon season will invoke a totally different mood. As the starts aggregating on the western hemisphere grandma begins her stories as usual. During this season, most of the stories will be horror in nature as she might have thought that the mood of the story should match with the mood of the environment.

“Have you seen that darkness in the western hemisphere?” Grandma always starts the stories with a question. She will be sitting on the verandah on the western side of our house stretching her legs to the steps that extent to the white sand. “That is the fort of devils. They are planning to attack us and undergoing training in different warfare.” When she tells, her facial expression itself generates a sort of fear in us, her grand children. Then she continues with different exercises being carried out there. The thunders are the sound arises when they practice with clubs and the lightening is the spark that comes out when two swords clashes with each other. Elengi tree will carryon the mood of the story throughout the night with the howling of owls and the noises produced by bats and other small creatures. Providing suitable background music, the rain falls heavily on the roof tiles to create rhythm of devils.

Thus the elangi tree played an important role in my childhood life and introduced me to different moods. It provoked the imagination power in me too. As the things were going on quite smoothly, to my shock I came to know that the tree has been sold and the people will come to cut it soon. Of course, my first worry was about my fairy princess. Her palace is going to get destroyed and her brave prince will have to watch it helplessly. I really feel pity on me and became sad as I am not able to rescue here when a real need aroused. All my adventures in my daydreams went in vein. The result was a few sleepless nights.

However, those sleepless nights turned me a realistic. The howling of owls in the night and the noise of crows made me to think realistically. I left my romantic princess in my dreams and started thinking about those owls, crows and different other creatures lived on that tree.

“Where will they all go, grandma?” I asked her as she was the only source for information on those days. My father will always be busy with his official works and mother never got time to come out of the kitchen.

“When the god created them, he has arranged their food, shelter etc too. You don’t have to worry about it.” But my grandma’s answer did not satisfy me this time. The D’ Day came at last and the inevitable thing happened. When the axe fell on the trunk, I heard the heart braking crying of my little friends who used to stay on that tree. But, what a seven year old can do? I had to watch the entire episode with weeping hearts. I remember that a few drops of tears that came out of my eyes.

Thus the elangi tree has become a thing of past and a new bungalow has come in that place. However, the screaming of my friends who lost their house did not leave my heart. Those helpless requests for a place to stay started burning within my heart. As the time passed those noises of agony became fire of angry. And that fire still keeps me enthusiastic to fight against many such things.