In tree, a living memorial to love

Hari Krishan Chaudhary

Ram Prasad came as a youthful young man who anyone would hire as a help in the farms of Punjab. A Bihari, he was newlywed with a bride in tow. He took odd jobs at our farm with vigour and experience he brought with him. He was given a room built on the tube well. 

A couple of years later they were blessed with a son. He took leave to go to his native place after becoming a proud father. He was always diligent and duty conscious, returning to work soon after his break.

His family adjusted with ours and was like an extended family sharing our delights and concerns. The couple took to Punjabi culture and cuisine, and even language. We, too, learnt Bhojpuri and Bihari customs, and even tasted litti chokha prepared by his wife.

Life was moving at a leisurely pace till one day his wife contracted fever, which was later diagnosed as dengue. Her platelet count dropped and failed to respond to a protracted treatment.

 She was brought dead to the house. Ram Prasad was inconsolable. His small child did not even know that his mother was no more. After performing her last rites, he was too dejected to work. He decided to go back to his hometown in Gaya.

 To keep the memory of his wife alive, he brought a jamun sapling from a nursery and planted it near the tube well, overlooking his room. He went away the next day with his meagre belongings and his little son. We saw him off at the station. He was emotional; his tearful eyes looking at us from the train window.

We wished him good luck and my father blessed him with a pat on his and his child’s head. He waved at us till the train disappeared.

At home we felt lonely and sad. The tube well was engulfed in an eerie silence. The room was dark and abandoned; the jamun tree the only thing that reminded us of the departed family.

 The sapling grew leaf by leaf into a sturdy tree. As years passed, it was a huge tree with a green canopy of branches spreading on all sides.

One day, we got a call from Ram Prasad. He was working at a factory in Ludhiana. He informed us that his son was with him and going to school. He came to us teary-eyed and touched the feet of my parents. He then rushed to see the tree and couldn’t believe that it was the same sapling he had planted years ago. 

It was June. The luscious fruit was hanging on its branches and some were lying on the ground, crushed by the fall. He caressed the trunk and sat on a charpoy near the tree with his eyes closed. 

Fresh jamuns fallen on a sheet placed underneath the tree were collected. Ram Prasad savoured the fruit while he showed us the photos of his wife and his kid on his mobile phone.

We were hardly surprised that Ram Prasad had not remarried.