By: Tabassum Chowdhury
I dipped the liquor into my boiling hot water and took a sip. I put the spectacles back onto my desk as soon as they started to turn foggy due to the vapour from my drink. I was never the kind of man who would plant trees or keep pets. But nature did play a crucial part in my life, it reminded me of Ananya. The first time I saw her she was selling rajnigandha at a florist's store. I was twenty one back then and stopped by the store to admire the beauty. The next time we met was at her father's house, we were part of a conversation which had things to do with our wedding. A month later we were married off by our parents. We never held a real conversation until the night of our wedding. People prefer to call it arranged marriage but I would rather call it love at first sight. Even though Ananya and I were never on the same boat, we dealt with our problems in a mature manner. I was the kind of person who turned on the TV only to watch the news channel and she was the kind of person who would sit next to me and make garlands with paper flowers. She made me quit hunting birds.
Ten years from today something changed my life completely. I used to be a melancholic man still grieving for his wife's death and found solace in repeatedly reading the same newspaper. My son Amir who was five back then was growing up in a household which lacked the tenderness of a woman. I was upset by the thought that Ananya's absence would turn Amir into me, someone who preferred reading the same news over and over. Luckily I had been mistaken. Amir never showed a hint of annoyance in doing something, he never had the look of sorrow in his eyes neither did he ever enquire where his mother was. Amir always wore a warm smile and played with his crayons under the mango tree.
The giant mango tree stretching its branches like a monster that could potentially swallow our house any moment struck me as something which needed to be uprooted. I had been scheming for a week then but just when the bulldozer parked in our backyard. My son Amir caught me off guard. He was sitting under the same tree, hugging his knees and face buried in his lap. Sometimes I used to feel Amir didn't even cry half as much as children of his age. But that moment it all felt different. It didn't sound like a child's whimper to buy the toy train he caught sight of while the mother was engrossed in purchasing groceries, it came out more like someone deeply hurt.
I touched his shoulder and asked him to open up to his father. Amir looked up and wiped his tears with his dainty tanned hands. "Why would you take her away from me?"
I couldn't comprehend his words but when he pulled up the Mommy Duck's Tale and his drawing book, the mist began to clear. Amir copied all the illustrations from the storybook into his drawing book. But the mommy duck was our mango tree and the baby duck was a human boy who resembled my son himself. Just like the mommy duck was providing the baby with insects to savor, the tree bore fruits for Amir. In the story, mommy duck was protecting her little one from a fox while in my son's picture when the older boys at school were bullying him, he quickly climbed up the tree and disappeared from their sight. When it was raining the mommy duck spread her wings and draped them around her child and so did Amir's mother, he could sit underneath her and not fear the weather. "The tree is my mother."
It wasn't even an inch close to anything I had ever experienced. The tree made its place into Amir's heart and all those years he couldn't feel the pain Ananya's departure could've caused.
Dear Ananya,
Maybe you succeeded in making me give up on hunting birds but our son has taught me why you tried this hard to do so. It's not your fault you couldn't live up to the time when you could finally induce upon me the meaning behind all of it. But our Amir isn't like this old man, he is like you, kind-hearted, beautiful, he is someone who appreciates nature. Perhaps it was nature itself which decided to take you away from me but I am certain it kept you in a better place. Today I have thought of letting you know something I didn't have the heart or the mind to tell you while you were still here. I want you to know that day when I saw you for the first time selling rajnigandha, among all the flowers you were the most beautiful.
(Image from here.)
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