Life, thoughts and the Tamarind tree

*am not this environmenl junkie.The inspiration behind this write up is something else.
This grandpa tamarind tree has been there as part of my family’s life for generations. It occupied a territory of its own at the corner of the plot on which my maternal home stands.
These are certain thoughts that I wanna jot down about this great tree.

####Scene 1 , 20 odd yrs back (My mother’s memory)
My great grandma ws reduced to this puff bag out of old age,she could hear less,see less,walk less….she stooped, ..She ws living this age when anyone old was sidelined by their family and the 90yrs of her life on earth was considered of no use and her ramblings were nothing more than senility for others…
She would walk under this tamarind and pick up all the fruits.
She would make me sit on her lap(then a mere baby of 3 yrs) and put the sour taste of the ripe tamarind on my young tongue..She would have her chunk of the tamarind ..I would cry for more but the grand old lady would deny it to the part of her that would continue to live even after she dies…
When I was having my first feeling of the sour , I never knew that this grand old lady ws having her last ….all the years that she had lived were coming to an end and she ws relishing the last feeling of sour…

“on my tiny tongue were kept the tamarind…
She sat blind next to me…
The birds would chirp..
The tamarinds would fall..
But my old lady continued with the countless beads of her rosary..
The years tat she lived were the beads…
And the prayer she sang was her life….”

###Scene 2 ,
Another sunny day,My great grandma had stopped counting the rosary,she had stopped her attempts to hear,she had stopped walking under the tamarind…she was dead..
She ws given to the fire under the tamarind…she would get released from the fire and start residing on the tamarind with my great granpa…her rosary ws taken over by my grandma ….leaving all the tamarinds for me,my lady had gone to reside on the tree of the sour…

### Scene 3 ,
My friends had come visiting from school and could not resist the ripe tamarinds.All of us thronged under the tree…competed with each other to pick the fruits and spent our day under the tamarind…

###Scene 4 ,
We shifted from our old maternal home to a new concrete house.My old maternal home ws abandoned for vermin to thrive on ,spiders to web and years to destroy…
The grandpa tamarind ws left alone with the dead souls for company…none of the living members of the family had time to visit him…my granpa leased the yield of the season to the tamarind seller ..the routine it had followed for years din happen that season…it din fruit
My granpa visited the tree disgruntled by the disappointment he had given the tamarind seller...he stood under the tree…the sole fruit that the mighty tree bore that year fell ryt in front of my granpa…The tree spoke to its son…a silent tear popped out of my granpa’s eyes and he walked back home…

###Scene 5
The neighbours put a fire to burn the rag…the mighty wind took the fire to the tamarind..
The fire caught on to the tree…The granpa ws burnt out completely…
The fire ate up the big tree…

###Scene 6
Months later …I took my time off,visited my maternal home …walked where the granpa tamarind once stood..
Rain had washed away the ash,soil was smelling fresh ,earth ws showing the first green,earthworms were writhing in the fertility…
Tats when I noticed this small light green leaf making its way out of a green tamarind seed slightly above ground..

Yesterday’s raindrops were fresh on the tiny leaf…
It ws smiling at today’s rays…
It ws green with hope…
I din dare touch that lil sprout …
Years down the lane I would sit under its shade …
Still remembering my granpa tamarind…
The new replaces the old…
The worn out is replaced by the fresh..
This is how the world goes..
But memories doesn’t go the world’s way..


***I still dunno why I got overwhelmed by a tamarind tree…
N I churned out this philosophical shit outta it…
Am sorry readers(if there is any) for this two page length boredom …
But I really meant whatever I wrote…it does make sense to me…