A token of remembrance

It’s amazing how some incidents are etched in my memory through the simplest objects. Like an old radio, bringing back the memories of a 4 pm music show I’d listen to – out of my wish – after coming back from school. Or a wooden chair, reminding me of dadi while she’d sip tea around 4 pm on the porch. Or the parijaat flowers, that take me to the time dadi would pick and keep them on the shelf of our temple that’s full of grandeur. Or the shelf of the temple that, funnily enough, urges me to think of a birdhouse we used to keep there, back in the childhood.

But there was one object that tied all the memories together. I passed through it every day without realizing that it witnessed every event, everyone come and go. Infact, I believe it would have served as a token of remembrance for our home, had we moved out of there, because that’s the way people recognised or knew our home.

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It was just a huge, harmless Peepal tree in front of my home. Harmless, but documenting every moment from not just my, but also my father’s childhood. From what I know, the tree set its foot before our at least 6-decade-old house came into existence. I remember so many stories that involved it. One story that I distinctly remember is what dadi told me. She said that one time, when she was in her lowest, she cried at the temple, not knowing what to do next. That’s when she heard someone call her. She turned back and saw a saint standing near the tree. As the story goes, that saint, probably the God, guided her. Of course I completely disregarded the anecdote back then. But now when I think about it, I have started to believe parts of it. Not because of my faith in God, but because of hers.

I can go on about it – the incidents of street vendors standing under that tree, selling fruits in the scorching summer heat and jalebis on Dussehra; people discussing their routine at the pan shop and umpteen parrots that had made the tree their home.

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I don’t live in my hometown now. But I keep visiting it quite often to breathe the familiar air around. This time when I was back home, I saw the tree being felled. (Coincidentally, I’m always at home to farewell an old family member that is about to leave forever – whether it’s dadi, baba, or the mute-but-living Peepal tree.) Now, this may sound dramatic, but this took away a part of my home, stories and secrets, and the comfortable sight of a cheerful street. And with that, I saw another childhood memory getting erased. For this, I don’t have any object to pin my memory to.

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You know how they say, you don’t value the presence of something until that goes away? I miss the old radio shows, the morning fragrance of parijaat, the presence of the huge Peepal tree, and of course – the sight of dadi sipping tea on the porch.