The Tales of Unearthly Encounters

The Wish-Granting Tree

The field was vaster than the world I had known. I used to think that it was the vastest thing that could ever exist. Even all my thoughts and imagination couldn‟t fill it up. But what could I say, my thoughts didn‟t amount to much either, and my imagination was only bound till the edge of the village. To an idiotic bumpkin like me, the field was larger than seven Milky Ways combined.

Huge electricity towers stood tall from one side to the other of the field. They stood like titanic guards. They used to frighten me at the beginning. But once I got used to staring at them, they turned out to be just another part of the field, like the canal and the tree.

The electric towers awed me. I had always wondered what kind of divine intervention could lead mere humans to erect something so gigantic. I felt like I could touch the sky if I climbed over them. Or perhaps they would take me to the stars. I know it sounds funny, but again, all the vastness and the greatness of the world that I had ever known, were my village and the green fields surrounding it.

The field always gleamed like morning dew on a moss. A narrow canal had made its path through the side of the field, like an unsteady scratch of a pen. And a huge tamarind tree had sprouted out of the edge of the canal. It was so tilted that I often wondered how it was holding up to its roots.

Beneath the tree, I used to spend most of my days, while the cows grazed in the field. The tree provided me with shade in summer and shelter in rain.

I did not go to school. I did not get any education. Education was a luxury which very few could afford. My duty was to stay vigilant and guard the cows. The animals were more precious to my master than my whole family.

It was not like I had a fall from grace or fortune. It had always been so in our family. My father did the same, my grandfather did it, and my great grandfather had complied with this same duty. The tree had been there from the time of my great grandfather. My grandfather napped beneath it, my father did, and then he passed on the baton to me. The tree, the field, the soil, the sky, the green grass; it felt like everything was etched in my blood, bones and flesh.

At the same time, I didn‟t belong there. Or you could say that a part of my identity wanted to break free from this genetic shackle. I was a human trying to be an alien.

"Open your heart to the tree. Ask him. He can hear your thoughts. Your thoughts whisper to him. He‟ll grant what you wish for." My grandfather used to tell me this when I was a child. I never believed that. If it had really been some magical wish-granting tree, then neither my father nor I should have been ended under it. I think it had been grandfather‟s trick to bind me to the tree. Like a sacred role which had been taken upon by us for ages- to imprison me within its fist.

I was sitting under the tamarind tree, as usual, doing my duty, like I had been doing for an eternity. The sun was exactly in the middle of the sky. But fortunately, the young monsoon had brought a nip in the air.

My mind wandered for him. He must have left for the city. Well, that was his destiny. He was my best friend, the only person in the village who made me wait eagerly for another morning to come. A brief sigh escaped from my mouth.

Maybe it was for the good. That was how I attempted to console myself.

But there was this alien side of mine, which was always struggling to rip out of me. I was frustrated, furious and jealous. I didn‟t want him to go. Maybe I wanted to escape too. Maybe, this buried side of me wanted nothing but to strike mere revenge on the people who had cast us to the edge. It knew that he would spend every day the same, resting under the tree, blankly gazing at the sky. It didn‟t want any of that. It wanted to escape, at any given cost.

I was so immersed in my thoughts that I hadn‟t noticed when the young monsoon had started pouring its sinister blood on the sky. Dark clouds were bursting out from the corner of the sky like raging death reapers.

Within moments the sky broke out into a fierce nightmare. The clouds erupted into numerous thunderous fireworks. But even a fiercer storm was raging within me. I wanted to get out of all of this. I wanted to break free from my past, my present and my inevitable future. I wanted to escape my fate and destiny. I wanted to shoot out from this enclosed universe of mine.

"Ask the tree with your heart. You will always be listened to." My grandfather had said this.

And perhaps this was true. Perhaps the tree really listened. Perhaps it really wanted me to escape from my fate. Or perhaps it was all a coincidence. I didn‟t know. The tree came onto me too fast, I don‟t know whether as a blessing or mercy. But there isn‟t much difference in the end.