Banyan Tree

She unraveled in slow motion, like a ball of string. So unobtrusively, that for a while no one noticed. If her gait was a slower, her speech a little slurred, if she gazed into the distance a little too much, no one paid attention. She was a girl, well on her way to becoming a young woman after all.

Her parents were looking for a good boy from a socially and financially compatible home for her. Someone with a stable job and good prospects. And, after all, girls at her age were known for a certain listlessness that comes from wondering about their future lives. What kind of man will my husband be? Will my in-laws be as mean as some I have heard about? Perhaps, her parents thought, that is what she wondered, as she sat under the banyan tree in the courtyard, drying her long hair in the hot shade of the summer.

It was a magnificent tree. Its trunk, rough and welted with thick muscular cords of tree tissue. Roots thrusting deep into the ground, thirstily sucking up water. Aerial roots descending from its twisted branches, touching the ground, some of them gouging the black soil beneath like giant simian fingers. The rounded base of each leaf tapering to a gracefully fine point, with its distinctly ridged, life giving veins. The intertwined roots and branches growing in all directions had created a cool oasis, a little gazebo, shaded against the heat of the blazing sun. Inside this gazebo, on the concrete bench, was Rupa’s special place.

The tree had stood tall and young when the house was built, a century or more ago. The central trunk was now starting to weaken from age, but the roots and branches still supported its huge bulk. From the courtyard, it had witnessed the births, marriages and death that bind every family. It had survived the children who swung from its hanging roots, the years of no rain, and then the torrents that had threatened to drown it and the house.

Banyan trees are said to be the abode of spirits, good and bad, who have to be satiated. So, every Tuesday, the married woman of the house, through the generations, had broken a coconut at its roots, drenching the soil with sweet water and fragrance. And, for every festival, it was adorned with red and yellow ceremonial powders. When a new child entered the household, the tree was one of the first to bless it. And the bodies of the departed members of the family were laid on a mattress made of its leaves, to temper the hardness of the paved courtyard.

On hot, hot days and cooling nights, the family would sit under its shade, especially during the frequent power cuts.. Its leaves would whisper back and forth, a giant fan powered by the slightest breeze. Sipping cool lemonade and mango juice in its shadow, they would relax from the day’s tedium.

Then as the sun circled the globe and fixed its gaze more strongly on that little part of the world, its leaves would begin to fall, yellowed and dryly brittle. A ceaseless drift of papery leaves, drifting from the tree, falling without sound, forming heaps that would have to be swept away at the end of each day. The sweeper would get earn an extra ten rupees a month at this time of year, to compensate for the intense heat and the persistent sweeping.

Summer days seem endless. The golden beating of the sun, the bright light that fades only reluctantly into twilight. Sweat that runs like a torrent, untamed by three baths a day and copious dustings of white talcum powder. And it was in this intense furnace of the season that Rupa began to slip away, like molasses being poured from an earthen pot. She spent most of her day sitting under the banyan tree in the back yard. She would only be roused, with difficulty, when her mother yelled for her to wash the dishes, or to pick the rice and lentils clean of the small pebbles with which the corner grocer routinely adulterated these staples.

When she walked around the house doing her chores she took twice as long as normal. Or she would sit around languidly, forgetting even to fan herself when it became unbearably hot. Sometimes a fly would alight on the corner of her lip, attracted by a bead of sweetened tea she had forgotten to lick away. It would take her a few minutes to flick it away.

Then came the windfall of her father’s bonus from work, the first in ten years. Apart from a tidy sum put away to finance her wedding, the rest was to be used to improve the house.

Her mother had always wanted to add on to the main house, a verandah and another room and perhaps a bathroom, for guests. They would especially need it during the time of Rupa’s wedding, as soon as they decided on a boy, of course. But the weakening old tree had to go to make room for this new addition.

“I know it is an old tree sister and it has served our family well, but its shadow has always terrified me. I will not be sad to see it go,” she said gleefully to her neighbors, as she told them of her plans for the house.

The tree contractors came by one day, when she was doing her chores, to measure the tree, calculating the manpower and saws needed to do the job. There was a palpable air of excitement and change in the house.

Then Rupa’s lassitude snapped with a vengeance. She tore at the neat braid her mother had woven for her that morning, loosening her hair, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she convulsed and thrashed on the ground, soiling her clothes in the dust.

“Lord Krishna, what is happening to her?” her mother cried, as her father inserted a wooden spoon in her mouth, like the bit of a mare, so that she would not swallow her own tongue.

“She must be possessed. Look, it is the Goddess Kali incarnate,” the old family servants whispered. In fact, she did look the picture of the violent protector, with her tangled black hair and whirling arms. A few of them came up to touch her to be blessed, before the goddess retreated leaving just the girl they had always known.

“It would be best for her to be married,” whispered other old timers. “But who will marry a crazy girl?” others countered. Her parents, meanwhile, searched for a cure from doctors in the area. The search for boys gained a new frenzy but rumors travel fast in a small town.

Rupa divided her time between sitting and staring into space under the banyan tree and giving in to her fits. Occasionally, the local doctor was summoned. The sharp needle, pulsing with clear liquid brought with it, some relief for the household, as she was swept away in a deep sleep. Life in the old house crept into a routine of frenzied panic and numbing sleep. And everyone agreed, that this curse being visited upon the family was because of that old tree. For it was only when its life was threatened that Rupa had gone mad.

Her father bore this burden stoically. He would shrug his shoulders as he had done when she was born, his only daughter, his wife unable to bear more children. Her mother, on the other hand, cried and bemoaned her fate to all who would listen. “Oh, every Holi and Diwali we expiated the tree. We included it in every ceremony, everything that happened in the family. When my husband’s ancestors built the house, out of respect, they let it live. They could have cut it down, but they didn’t, did they? In fact, they brought it into our house, our lives. Now, see how it repays us?”

“My poor Rupa, she was starting to get such good proposals, sister,” she would cry, wiping ceaseless tears from her eyes. “But now, she just sits there. Look at her.” Her confidants would commiserate, filing away the girl’s symptoms for later gossip sessions, over hot tea and pakoras with the other neighborhood women.

One neighbor in particular, Rajni, a sharp tongued woman with a long thin nose like a fox, came every day, listening to Rupa’s mother, offering advice.

They spent a long time whispering and crying, casting furtive glances toward the girl who lay on the concrete bench under the tree. The two women, then stood outside the canopied tree, looking upon the girl. The graceful pattern of the banyan’s twigs adorned with leaves, pendant-like, played their shadows on the girl’s face. Her eyes were closed, a slight smile on her face chasing one happy thought after the next, her long fingered hands playing with the long black hair that cascaded around her, a rich pillow of black, rippling silk.

The other woman nudged Rupa’s mother in the ribs. She cleared her throat. It was best to sound authoritative and in command.

“You. You there, leave my daughter alone. We have given you enough over the generations. We owe you nothing more.”

Rupa lay still, not noticing anything, as if her mother’s shouts to old trees were commonplace.

“Rupa, leave the tree alone and come here. I am your mother and you must obey me. It is written in the laws.”

The hand playing with her hair stilled, but the eyes never opened and the lips kept on smiling.

“Listen to me girl. This has gone on long enough.”

Her voice broke as cried, “It is of no use. She is totally under his spell. Oh cursed was the day that my husband’s great-great-great-grandfather invited him into our lives. Tell me sister, whose daughters can be safe with this menace living right in one’s house?”

She broke into tears, while her companion did her best to console her. Then they returned inside to re-think their strategy. Their whispers, loud, harsh and sometimes tearful echoed through the house, but Rupa remained where she was, until the pale shadows of the leaves on her face changed to dark patches. Still she lay there, looking at the dying sun through the jostling leaves.

“It is those lustful spirits that live in the tree sister. And your daughter, so pretty, and Lord Krishna, that hair, black as a young man’s lust, down to her hips.” She clucked her tongue in disapproval.

“A woman’s hair should always be confined. When I was a young girl, I remember my mother beat me up one time…for my own good…sister, you understand. Because I would wash my hair and sit under the banyan tree to dry it. And she would tell me not to do that, but I would insist on doing it anyway.

And, then one day, an old sadhu visited us, asking for alms. And, as my mother opened the door to him, he looked in and saw me sitting under the tree. He shouted, and sister, his words, still ring in my ears, to this day. ‘Get away from that tree daughter. For, it is in these old banyans that the desires of man are trapped. Some of the spirits in the tree are more dangerous than any mortal man, to the chastity of a young woman. And, especially, these spirits are attracted to the long, dark coils of a woman’s hair. For in the hair is the seductiveness of woman.’

That very day, sister, my father and brother took an ax to that tree and chopped it up for firewood. And I got such a beating, that I will never forget that lesson. But luckily I was saved before any harm was done. Now, I would see your daughter and the tree, and had wanted to say something for years. But, it is not in me to put my nose in other people’s business. And now see what has happened? I blame myself sister.”

“But we are going to get the tree cut down in a week, sister. Will that solve it?”

“No, no, not now. Now, he has entered her body. If it had been cut before she had invited him in, it would have been solved. But now…I have heard, she will die, just fade away, if the tree is cut. Now if it was to fall by itself, through natural causes, she could be freed. But otherwise she, and you, are trapped by this…this thing.”

A flood of tears greeted her words.

“Oh Lord, I am caught in a hellish web. If I cut through it my child dies and if I don’t she dies. I can’t just wait for the accursed thing to fall down by itself. What can I do?” She asked her husband who ignored her, as always. He looked down at her hand on his bare forearm, and said, firmly, “the tree comes down in two days. Now stop all this nonsense. We will take the girl to the doctor in the city tomorrow. Mr. Sharma at work says this doctor specializes in cases of hysteria.” The women clucked in dismay, unable to do much else.

The night was still. Stark skies, precisely placed stars and the silver luster of the moon, made it appear like a painting in silhouettes. Under the canopy of leaves, she lay, staring at the darkness outside from the darkness within. Occasionally, a leaf, shaken loose by an errant breeze, would fall onto her. The leaves and branches shook continually, like the tremor of a palsied old man.

“I know, they are trying to keep me away from you,” she whispered, “how can I bear it my love?”

A soft leaf fluttered down, kissing her upturned lips. She smiled, “I cannot stay away. When I am with you…I feel…I feel alive. As I’ve never felt before. I feel the keenness of the wind, the fire of the sun, the whips of the rain as my body has never felt before.”

The night drifted away toward twilight, a lone boat on the sea of the universe. And Rupa remained cradled within the tree. She lay there, even as the wind gathered strength, and the stars and the moon were enveloped in quilts of dark clouds.

The first drop of water crept in through the leaves and splashed onto her cheeks, like tears flowing in reverse, spilling into her eyes. And each drop of water, black like oil in the night brought with it fear of loss, and an omen of the approaching storm.

Wind gathered strength over the land, and when it finally approached the small town, pregnant with rain, a strange stillness invaded the dark, before it finally broke. The madness of the wind competed with the deadly fingers of lightening that reached down from the sky, and the stinging sheets of rain that threatened to drown the world. The storm lasted through most of the night, while the towns-people remained inside, cowering against the cries of the wind and the growling of the skies.

Morning arrived as the storm finally went on its way, considerably weakened. Power lines had snapped, roads were submerged, and the river had broken past its earthen dam to spill over into the houses by its banks. The newspapers said that this had been the worst storm and the heaviest rains in recorded history.

The old tree had been unable to withstand the punishment and had fallen, with a crash in the early hours of the morning. Its huge roots now pointed toward the blue rain-washed sky. Twigs, small branches and leaves were scattered throughout the court-yard.

“Oh, thank, Lord Krishna, it missed the house. It fell down by itself. Now we don’t have to pay them to cut the damn tree, just to take it away,” her mother rejoiced, knowing that it was over.

“Well, time to make tea and breakfast. Where has that girl gone and died? Aii, you,” she gestured to one of the servants, “go see where that lazy girl is, and tell her to wake up.”

She was not in her bed, not in any of the rooms. Rupa had disappeared sending her mother into another fit of tears, lamenting her fate.

That was before, she saw the hemmed and tasseled edge of the yellow dupatta, Rupa had worn the day before, trapped in the wreckage of the tree. It was before the workers hacked away at the roots and branches to the central trunk, where the girl lay, clasped to its strength. And it was before she looked into her daughter’s sightless open eyes, from where blood had pooled and run down her cheek.