Finally! A reason to wake up. That was one long slumber. And really, who could blame me? The last two decades had been hard on me, on all of us. We no longer felt welcome in our own city, like people who had long been driven out of here. And how could we? When our friends and family were being forgotten, being pushed aside, and being killed.
We—the giving trees—had given so much to the city. It was our magic that controlled the climate of Shajarpur, that gave it its clear blue skies, its perfect amount of rain and sun and wind, clear water, and bountiful produce. And I? I was the heartwood of the magic.
But then it had all changed.
My weary heartwood first sank when the peepal tree fell. My tree rings grew closer and closer as if gathering together for support. My roots dug deeper and deeper as if reaching out to the others, telling them to hold on.
But the peepal’s bark, thickened by the passage of time, was sliced like ribbons by the sharp edge of a power saw. Gone, a puff of carbon, no match for steel.
The laburnum tree fell next.
As did the tamarind.
So did the neem tree.
And the gulmohar (though, to be fair, they do tend to fall a lot).
The mangroves, they of half-land, half-water, were the last straw, as they, too, began to be reclaimed into all land and concrete. What a strange word humans used for this—reclamation—when they were claiming something that wasn’t theirs to take. That which belonged to the mudskippers, the corals, the crabs, the lapwings. They reclaimed it as theirs anyway.
With that, the climate slowly began to change because my magic weakened, as our tribe diminished. Not that anyone noticed, after all it’s just the weather.
Meanwhile, in the void left by the fallen trees—grew a forest, anew.
Canopies of glass.
Roots of cement.
Barks of steel.
A not-a-forest forest of concrete.
And the humans? With every new generation, they seemed to have forgotten that they were a part of a world that was not just about them. With every passing year, Shajarpurians began preferring buildings over us trees, malls over beaches, and parking lots over mangroves. For them, house plants, terrace gardens, and crows-kites-pigeons were wild enough, thank you very much. Where local trees once stood, lantana creeps and crawls and slowly strangles . . . (shudder). Where once flew crested serpent eagles, there were now black kites and rock pigeons.
The more they forgot, the less they cared. The less they cared, the more they forgot. As they forgot, my magic weakened. Grief-stricken, I had no choice but to withdraw into myself. To try to forget, like we had been forgotten.
But now, just like spring, hope blossomed. If I could sing a song, I would burst into a chart-topping Bollywood one with flowery lyrics (if anyone’s allowed that, it is a tree) about a much-awaited arrival. Admirably, grand old me showed great restraint.
Instead, I burst into fruit, or rather, with fruit. Lots of them—not just the stray one or two necessary to keep me alive. Birds took up the chorus on my behest, as did the cicadas, even though it was morning.
Now little green bulbs played peek-a-boo in my canopy, hiding invisible flowers within them. Renewed strength coursed through my roots. It was time to shed my tiredness and gather myself. Across the city, trees, plants, and shrubs burst into bloom, and purples, yellows, and reds dotted the skyline.
“About time,” a wasp buzzed gently.
The school bell rang, and I was jolted awake as something buzzed right by my ear. I must have fallen asleep under the tree! That, too, on my first day of school. What a doofus. The smell of wet soil and leaves was thick around me, luminous pinpricks swam in front of my eyes. I blinked. I had dreamed that the grand old Tree had woken from a long slumber, as if someone had moved a mouse, making their computer screen light up, and begun to complain about the state of the world.
It was a dream, right? It had to be. After all, I could not be in a weird-weather place and not have weird things happen to me. That would be even more weird. But still, talking plants and now talking trees had to be a first, even for me. Nope, I was not going there. It was all that exhaustion, of everything, and these were all just daydreams. Talking tree, it seems!
I took a ragged, deep breath. The sounds of a volleyball being tossed around and the chatter of my schoolmates came into sharp focus, along with an orchestra of birds and cicadas.
I quickly looked around and then peered at my hands and legs. Phew, no one had doodled anything or smeared toothpaste on them. The one good thing about being invisible is that no one notices you. I sighed with relief and packed up my tiffin. I should have been thinking about the next class, but try as I might, I could not shake off the whispers from my dream.