Fact: Never had I ever climbed a tree.
No thank you. Not interested. It’s fully unnecessary.
But here I was, standing under Tree. My Tree. All right, Tree was special to the Ents, but I needed them more today. Anyway, Tree spoke to me, not them.
I sat back down on the root and immediately, I stepped into that loamy, luminous world. I heard a whisper.
Ever seen—
a smiling tree?
a laughing tree?
a tree that’s so delighted
that their heartwood sings?
Fine, stop tossing poetry at me, I will climb up. Bekku can climb trees, so can I. I could totally do this. But why, I cursed, had my parents not taken us tree climbing? After ages, it was a gorgeous Shajarpur day—crisp, like a perfectly salted potato chip. I surveyed Tree—the left branch seemed low enough. I grabbed it and stepped onto a root jutting out of the ground.
Okay, so now I was stretched across the tree trunk like a bark gecko. Only I was very, very visible. Why could I not have camouflage superpowers?
Tree, help?
Silence.
Lovely.
I put my foot a little bit higher, hauling myself up to the next branch. The branch held. I pushed myself up, but my foot slipped, and I scrambled for a nub or branch to rest on. Nothing. There was nothing but air! I felt like a cartoon character as I slid my foot up and down the bark, trying to find something. No, no, nooooo!
Just then a hand steadied my foot, and I was hoisted on to the branch. I scrambled and gripped it like my life depended on it. Given I was three feet above terra firma, I knew it was a slight exaggeration, but still.
I looked down—Samar was standing there and grinning. “You’re welcome,” he said, putting his arms on the neighboring branch and swinging up just like the monkey he was. Effortlessly—it didn’t even muss up his hair!
“I was doing fine,” I said, gingerly putting my back to the trunk and settling in a bit more comfortably.
“Yes, I could see. You were just fine—like a proper cartoon. Only thing missing was the soundtrack of tada tara tadaaaadeee tadeee.”
I scowled at him, watching as he climbed higher and higher. Finally, he sat on a branch diagonally opposite me, legs dangling in the air and, to my utter surprise, took out his phone, put on his headphones, and started listening to music.
“Excuse me,” I said. But Samar was bobbing his head. A black and red butterfly was jauntily perched on the side of his head, opening and closing its wings. It looked like he was wearing a butterfly clip. I waved my hand but neither Samar nor the butterfly paid any attention.
Fine, I didn’t need the company, I had come to talk to Tree. I touched Tree, but the traitor sat stubbornly silent. Hello, I wanted some Dad memories, but clearly Samar sitting here meant I couldn’t tune into Tree Channel.
Sighing, I looked up. It felt a little like being in a storybook world where anything was possible. I reached for my backpack, but I had left it on the ground, along with my book, snack, and water.
Oh well. I looked around me. An army of ants was marching up and down the bark. I put a finger in their path and smiled as they marched around it. Sitting there felt like a hug, as if I was safe from everything and everyone—and from that frog on my heart.
It had been a few weeks since the Ents and the teachers had made me resume club meetings. Meher was often out late with her friends and she disappeared on the weekends, while Mom refused to come out of the room when she was not cleaning. Saying there was too much paperwork, she even ate her meals inside, which meant that if I didn’t go out with the Very Cool and Hip People, I was left to eat all my meals alone in front of the TV.
Once again, I found myself gnashing my teeth, and I slowly unclenched them. My jaws had begun to hurt from all that gritting. Don’t know why Mom didn’t realize we missed her, and she was still there, with us. Shouldn’t she be like a parent, fuss around us, look after us? But no, she was always BUSY. Work, paperwork, depression. Something was always more important than us.
“It’s finally fruiting, you know,” Samar said. I looked at him from the corner of my eyes—his headphones were around his neck. Now he wanted to talk to me. “It had stopped, but the wasps are back, pollinating the fruit, dying inside it, and . . .”
“DYING?” I almost fell off the branch. “They die? What?”
Samar was trying hard not to laugh. “You don’t know?”
“Clearly!” I would have crossed my arms indignantly, but I needed to hold the trunk tight.
“So,” Samar said, touching a bulb right next to him, “there’s something unique about these ficus trees. They don’t pollinate the usual way of seedpods and all. No sirji, not good enough for us. Instead, each tree species has a wasp unique to it.” He smiled slightly as one came buzzing by, as if she knew she was the subject of our conversation.
Samar held out his hand, palm facing the canopy, and the wasp settled on it lightly. I was pretty sure he called it “Tina” softly.
I think my eyes were as round as a wasp’s nest. He was very weird.
“Ever wondered why you never see fig flowers?”
Before I could shake my head, Samar continued, “It’s because what you’re seeing is not exactly the fruit. Think of them like inside-out flowers, and a whole bunch of them together. That inflorescence smell attracts female wasps. So in goes the wasp, into the fruit, to the tree that’s just hers. They leave their eggs inside all the flowers.”
“How do they get in?” I asked, in spite of myself. I couldn’t help staring at a fruit-which-was-also-a-flower bunch.
“Look at this one closely?” As if listening to him, the wasp flew over to me. If I had even the faintest clue how to climb down, I would have gone right away. But instead, I took a deep breath as the wasp settled on my arm. I got goosebumps.
“See the inverted teeth and special hooks on her legs? Isn’t she beautiful?”
I totally disagreed but decided it would be impolite to voice that to a member of said flying, stinging, easily-dying species perched on my arm. I nodded instead.
“She loses her wings and her antennae to get in, her first sacrifice for her young ones. Then the second sacrifice, for the tree. After that, of course, she cannot leave.”
“You mean these fruits are full of dead wasps?” I spoke a little too loudly. The wasp buzzed off, and I couldn’t help but think she sounded indignant.
“Well, not exactly, the fig fruit contains an enzyme to digest them.” He stopped to look at me. I was completely grossed out.
“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s nature. Let me finish. Then, well, the eggs hatch, and there’re larvae which feed on the fig and well . . . okay, it gets worse before it gets better.”
I shook my head but didn’t say anything, and Samar took it as a cue to continue. “The males, you know, fertilize the females, bore tiny exit tunnels, and die. And then the females leave the figs, carrying pollen. They travel—and how—and then they go on to the next fig fruit. All of this in just a matter of days!”
“This is the worst story I’ve ever heard.”
“Depends on how you see it,” Samar said. “It’s a mutually beneficial system. The females have a safe space to lay their eggs. The tree gets to travel without going anywhere and, at the same time, they become more trees. And because it’s not bound by other pollination rules, it fruits almost through the year. Chow time for us and lots of birds, animals, et cetera.”
“UGH! I don’t think I’m ever eating figs again.”
Samar shook his head. “Without all this happening, the world would actually have a lot less biodiversity. Because the fig trees kind of are like the big sisters of this world, they ensure that the plants and animals thrive.”
“But they DIE!”
“The wasp doesn’t know if its life is for two days or 100 days or 100 years,” Samar said. “They live those two glorious days without thinking of it as short or long. It’s life as they know it. A complete life.” He sighed and touched the bark. “Tree? Tree is the holder of death and life all together.”
Before I could respond, the branches above us shook and I stared open-mouthed as a big gray bird settled there. I winced. Big bird = big poop. But since I was stuck there, I hastily shut my mouth. After all, why offer a soft target? It was a strange bird, S-shaped with a curved beak that looked too big for its body.
“She comes here almost every day,” Samar said. He was looking at the bird with a sad smile on his face. “One of the many birds who depend on this tree. Her mate died—I don’t know what happened. But they would come here together and sit together every day. And then one day, he wasn’t there.”
“Maybe he found someone else?”
“Hornbills mate for life, Savi,” Samar said.
The bird opened her beak and let out a loud wail. It was such a sad sound that my eyes welled up. I wanted to wail with the bird. But there was not a chance of that happening in front of Cucumber Tendril Boy.
The three of us sat companionably on the tree until the bell rang. Samar scaled down quickly and looked up at me. The grin was back on his face.
“Need help?”
I shook my head even though I couldn’t begin to figure where to put my leg to come down.
“It’s all right to get help sometimes, you know,” Samar said. He pointed to a small protrusion in Tree. “There, just put your left leg here and then jump down.”
Heart hammering, I did as told. I landed with an inelegant thump. But instead of laughing, Samar held out his hand and hoisted me up.
The hornbill shook her feathers and took to the air.
“Shall we?” Samar jogged off without waiting for an answer. The butterfly followed him. He stopped, turned back, and scowled. “Also, it’s all right to help someone if they ask you for help, Savitri.”