The old woman and her trees

by: Chandra Jain   

---

Email this page

Print this page

---

“Where have you come from?” The old woman asked. “ Pipliya village. I am an orphan stayed with the seth for some time. Now they have gone to Delhi. They wanted me to go along with them. Didn’t want to go so far saab,” replied the boy. “Every one calls me Baiji. Now play the flute,” she commanded. Gokul slightly more at ease played notes of songs from bygone days. Somewhere far away came answering notes of a violin. But it stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The old woman was listening intently but at the continuing silence she just sighed turned and took him inside. Gokul the wandering waif and this old woman who only lived for her bonsai garden make an odd pair. Often she would drop everything at dusk and ask him to play a long forgotten film song. There were times he heard the answering notes. A peculiar sense of belonging emerged between them as Baiji talked about her son Chaitanya. “He was a silent child. Quiet and introverted. He loved playing his violin.” She fell silent as if lost in another world. Gokul had seen the violin in one room that was the only one kept clean in this huge decaying building. The smiling young man looked out from a huge life like photograph. Baiji used to live in that room probably comforted by his presence? Baiji’s grandfather had built the haveli. She was the only survivor of a fairly large family and since her husband had drunk away all his savings she had come back here with her plants and bitter memories. One evening as Gokul was making rotis for the evening meal he heard a violin play a note full of pathos. He followed the mournful music it grew louder near the banyan tree in the bonsai garden. Tales heard from the old milkman, the odd dhobi who came occasionally to wash clothes, Gokul had heard that during Baiji’s stay in the Northeast (where her husband was posted) she acquired magic from a wandering Chinese mystic of ‘shrinking the earth’. This ancient banyan tree must have been over a hundred years old gifted by this Baba, which looked like a distorted human body. Two roots exposed above soil level as the top of the legs, two branches trained upwards as the arms with five small branches as fingers. At the top of the trunk where the arms took their rise was a globular mound of the stump, which was looked like a head! Gokul was enthralled, the music stopped. Something moved, was that a bent old tree? Mercifully it was Baiji. She had begun resembling an old, gnarled tree over the years. One look at her tear lined face and Gokul didn’t dare ask all the questions that were bursting forth. Silently they walked around the haveli, bathed in magical moonlight. They ambled around the ‘bona baag’, which held an immense variety of bonsais. Undersized and wizened trees with two trunks, many trunks swayed in the gentle breeze. The upright trees, the bent tree, the twisted one, or the evergreen and deciduous trees appeared expectant. They all appeared magical in the moonlight as if they were all willing to talk through the night. Suddenly a Japanese maple with a formal rigid branches neatly pruned appeared to be whispering secrets to a luscious cactus with tiny thorns. Baiji had grown trees even in her tiny diyas. Elaborate designer lamps held tiny growing creepers, cacti and crotons. She had many peepul trees, which she grew on rocks that stood on soil. The plants roots were trained over the rock down to the soil. The root system left the protection of the soil and crept over the rock conforming to its shape and then re-entered the soil. Pines and azaleas with vigorous roots she planted on these rocks and it gave an impression of a mountainous jungle. “It was when Chaitanaya saw how his father hit me that made him come rushing to my defense, began Baiji slowly. As if the long repressed sorrows were being set free. Chaitanaya at more than six foot towered over his father and sent him sprawling across the room. His head crashed on to the wall and in the moment of panic I let him leave home…” A long drawn sigh escaped her. Gokul pressed her arm reassuringly. “No, beta you will never understand. That man was a monster. I turned to the trees for solace. Uncomplaining and asking for little they were my friends. The more tyrannical he became the more I channelized my energies into dwarfing the trees. To watch with fascination how these trees would grow under inhospitable conditions. Or to feel momentarily like god, to shape and give direction to the trees I wonder. Perhaps feel a fleeting sense of control?” Baiji had concentrated on twisting and tying her bonsais into still tighter shapes. “Look at that peepul tree, and that misshapen gnarled eucalyptus. I took out all my frustrations on them. But they taught me that one could survive the harshest of conditions.” Gokul being familiar to violence sympathized with Chaitanya. Better to have no father. Then you don’t suffer from any disillusion. “Phir kya hua?” The old woman was not listening she was staring at the sky. A star shimmered more brightly than the others. “Yes, yes that’s him. Chatainya’s looking after me!” Gokul shivered. She noticed, “Yes, yes let’s go inside.” Gokul watched with fascination at tiny elm trees, which resembled the old fashioned brooms. Baiji had trained the main branch to grow vertically while the others were angled slightly on both sides. There were rocks of different shapes and sizes at one end of the garden grown with tiny pines, spruces, junipers and maple, which gave the effect of a mountain scene. The bright coloured azalea with their tiny flowers would surprise him by their intensity. There were weeping willows Baiji had grown by grafting and cuttings. Wires trained their cascade trunk. Yes they were works of art. Shiv kumar the occasional gardener strolled towards him obviously envious of the new boy. He was never allowed near the bonsai park and here was this kid, who knew no gardening happily watering, pruning weeding this park with such confidence! “ Earlier there used to be a lot of staff when saheb was alive, he informed rather grandly. Then after saheb’s retirement they were whittled down to a necessary three, driver, cook and dhobi with part-time maid for general cleaning and upkeep of the house. They all left after some time. The maid claimed that she heard the violin Chaitanya bhaiya played. The cook and the driver heard steps at night and sometimes fumes of alcohol would envelope them with drunken shouts at night. Gokul despite himself asked, “What happened to Chaitanya bhaiya?” Shiv Kumar appeared pleased; “ They brought his dead body the next morning. Apparently the truck he was traveling in overturned. Baiji was never the same again.” “How did saheb die?” persisted Gokul. The gardener lowered his voice, “Some lingering illness. Some say she grows poisons in the bonsai garden. That’s why she never allows anyone near it. Has she allowed you to eat any of the fruits from the trees?” Baiji would spend hours pruning her flowering trees with Gokul trailing behind her. She had roses, the size of tiny shirt buttons. Dahlias no larger than a one-rupee coin. Chrysanthemums tiny and in a riot of colours filled her dwarf park with their vitality. Sunflowers no larger than twentyfive paisa coins ran riot near the tiny lake. Lotuses white and pink tipped floated serenely unaware of their miniscule appearance. Raju noticed tiny multi coloured fishes in the lake as well. “Have you miniaturized them as well?” he asked in wonder. “No, god sent them like this. They are aquarium fishes,” replied Baiji smilingly. But he was sure he had seen a tiny sized crocodile near the river. “That was the chameleon child,” rebuked Baiji following his gaze. Was it his imagination or were they real miniature sparrows hovering on the tiny neem tree? Raju wondered uneasily at the tiny woodpecker tapping away energetically at the sheeshum tree. He began feeling like a giant. Yet he had to just turn his head and watch the normal sprawling haveli built by Baiji’s ancestors to feel normal. The old woman obviously enjoyed training Raju or rather talking to him and he had to silently listen to her monologues on bonsai plantations. Offering some intelligent, ‘Oh, accha, pehle to nahin dekha’ type of observations. “One of the most important routines in bonsai culture is the pruning of the roots, stated Baiji. First to train the root system, secondly to control it once the tree is established in the new pot.” Gokul watched in open-mouthed wonder at her snipping off some roots of an old neem tree. “Baiji we were told never to expose the roots, Ram must not see it also,” commented Raju. The boy noted that Baiji had used a wooden frame to support a roof with straw (khus) matting on three sides to protect her miniature garden from the harsh sunlight and loo, the strong scorching hot winds that blow in summers in Jodhpur. During winter nights she used to close it in all four sides to prevent the chill winds to enter her garden. Gokul stared at the many varieties of stunted oaks, in formal and cascading style. “Those were olive trees with gnarled trunks with luscious olives bending low from tiny branches gifted to me by a British who enjoyed gardening as much as I do,” pointed out Baiji. So many new trees and all in bent deformed patterns! Gokul often wondered how they had survived such tight bindings. “Yes, the trees teach you endurance, remarked Baiji. No matter how you tie them up. They continue to hope and survive in twisted contorted forms.” She was a mind reader. There were a couple of dwarfish rudraksha trees she had collected from a chance visit to Nepal. It produced annually minute sized panch mukhi rudraksh. The other one gave her the famous ek mukhi rudraksh every alternate year! Bottle brushes tiny and flaming red diminutive but sturdy provided a riot of colour in one corner. Gokul watched fascinated as the old woman vigorously twisted a wire around a pine tree to make it bent and gnarled. He saw many Japanese maples, camellias and azaleas in various misshapen poses. He knew that those trees had remained wired and tied up for many years. “Beta, pruning has to be done to force the production of new branches. The terminal shoot is cut, and then the topmost branch is trained to become the leader. A branch is tip pruned to the bud that will shoot in the direction that is most desirable for the bonsai shape being crafted, Baiji sighed. But as in life despite careful supervision things go wrong.” The boy looked at her enquiringly, “Jaise?” She pointed to the patch of chrysanthemums, which were flowering in a riot of colours. Gokul could find nothing wrong. They were all tiny but healthy and vigorous. “ You pinch out the flower buds which develop at the end of a new growth. Normally two buds would have developed to replace the original one. But in this case four to six buds replaced the original. They were small but the colours were more vibrant as if to compensate for their size.” Baiji had a twinkle in her eye as if she quite enjoyed such deviations. There were rows of Japanese maple trees, which she had pruned from a height of hundred centimeters to fifteen centimeters with foliage of fifteen centimeters spread! English hawthorns had been guided painstakingly to create twin trunk effects. There was a ber tree growing from a huge round old stump with tiny bers on it. “That had been an old tree uprooted during a storm which I trained into a bonsai.” The old woman informed. Gokul quickly popped a handful of them in his mouth. Yes they were delicious, sweet yet pungently sour. Soon he was yelling in pain at having his ears boxed and the tiny seeds fell on to the ground, which the old woman pounced on. “Ah! As punishment you have to grow tiny bonsais from them,” she exclaimed. Gokul grudgingly sowed the seeds in moist soil kept in paper bags tied on the top. He was surprised to see tiny shoots appear within a week’s plantation. Soon they were tapping at the mouth of the bag and struggling to get out. But Baiji watched with an eagle eye as Gokul had to first trim the thin thread like roots to leave only one and plant them carefully in flat plates. “ I wonder how long it will be when they will bear fruits again?” sighed the boy. Baiji cackled with laughter, “ Ah, a long, long time and that when you have nurtured them most carefully. You would be so much in love with them that you will almost dread to eat the ber.” With that she plucked some tiny green amlas and tossed them across. Raju didn’t care for them much. He was eyeing the tiny lemons hanging from rows of lemon trees, which were bent under the pressure of so much fruits. “Baiji, look…!” Gokul pointed to a huge green grasshopper feasting on the tiny leaves. He didn’t dare hit it for the fear of damaging the little trees and throwing Baiji in to fits of temper. The old woman quick as a flash had nimbly destroyed it with her long bony fingers. “Ah! Death to these locusts! There was a time when these pests had gobbled nearly all my bonsais up over night. Initially I was beside myself with grief thinking that all was lost but one hardy silver oak sprouted a tiny bud to reassure me. Almost reaching out to tell me that I could carry on again. After that I have always covered my jungle with a fine wire mesh.” The boy was tempted to eat the tiny perfectly made red pomegranates. Baiji had become a little more generous and she allowed him to eat some of them. They were juicy and had an indescribable sour and sweet taste. It went without saying that anything he ate the seeds had to be carefully spat out and sown in moist soil kept in plastic bags with their mouths tied. Gokul was adept with his fingers and he made wooden tiny goats and sheep, which he placed on sandy dunes. He even made a tiny boy to look after the flock. Baiji appeared pleased at the effect. Gokul was infused with a slenderest sense of belonging. He embarked on making a miniature old ancient haveli, for the bonsai jungle complete with a wee little sentry at the gate! The haveli built with miniature rocks, stones and bricks was exact copy of Baiji’s original haveli to every detail. There were several huge rooms in the ground floor and fewer rooms on the top with meandering corridors and courtyards. There were stables for horses. Garages for cars. The old woman was absolutely delighted. Was it purely his imagination or had she shrunk a little during the past few days. “Ah! You have only grown taller beta,” Baiji commented. With what solemn ceremony they installed the miniature house in a clearing under bel trees. There were dwarf china roses in vibrant red, minuscule tulsi and amla trees encircling the haveli. Maybe it was the effect of the sun or just a sense of joy of achievement that tempted Gokul to eat the tiny luscious bel, one after another. He plucked the tiny round bel from a huge bel tree shrunk to a height of a grand two feet. The pulp was unimaginably sweet like laddos, peras and batashas mixed together and smelled of incense. Gokul closed his eyes to savour the aroma. He was immediately transported into another world. He saw a black oblong like rock jutting out of a deep blue sea. He seemed to be walking or floating towards it. Gokul wasn’t terribly religious but knew sufficiently that the rock was a Shiv linga. He tried to prostrate himself and found that he was clinging on to it, as he didn’t know how to swim. Slowly he was guided to the shore. There were other little boys and girls and he discovered that they had at one time in their lives eaten bel from the forbidden garden. He was infected by their gaiety and complete abandon and joy. He spent a few happy hours playing games with his new friends. They seemed to accept him as one of their own. Then one tall thin boy got a huge red ball, all shining and new, he flung it high in the air, Gokul jumped to catch it. But the ball instead of coming down, moved higher and higher and slowly dissolved into the sky. Gokul felt deeply disappointed as if he had been cheated. He began weeping, and one little girl said, “Ro, mat…” and then tightened her grip on him. He opened his eyes, he was lying on the pathway of the huge old house and Baiji was shaking him. “You have been eating bel from the bageecha! What a nuisance you are! I have told you a hundred times not to do so.” He could hear her ranting from a distance, but nothing appeared to be more important than the loss of the ball. There was a loud honking at the gate. Shiv Kumar stood there; some men in a swanky car accompanied him. Gokul opened the rusty gate with reluctance. The car swept in and halted in front of the house. On sighting Baiji the older of the two men, bowed low, “Pranam Baiji. Pehchana?” Old age and tears shed and unshed had clouded her visions. She stared blankly. “I am Amarjit, your nephew.” There was still no response from her. “I am the son of your youngest sister-in-law. We had settled in Australia.” Baiji nodded her head. “When Ma died last year she told me to look you up.” She gestured to them to come inside. They made themselves comfortable on the dust covered broken sofa. After drinking water in loud noisy gulps Amarjit narrated how much his mother had wanted to come and meet her all the years but couldn’t. Baiji sat silently. Then the men got up and went out. Gokul, following respectfully behind saw them look at the haveli and critically appraise its market worth. “Several crores of rupees saheb. Property prices are shooting up in Jodhpur,” the other man commented. He was obviously a property dealer. Then their eyes fell on the bonsai jungle. Amarjit was exultant, “Baiji has a treasure trove right here! Each of these plants could easily fetch thousands of rupees! Or we could preserve it and sell it as an additional novelty.” Already plans were afoot to shift Baiji to a smaller flat and sell off the haveli. Gokul picked up his flute and began playing some old songs of betrayal and abandonment. He was aware that gradually, the sunlight appeared dimmer, the shadows of the trees altered imperceptibly. Somewhere a violin played an answering melancholy chord. Gokul felt his heart burst with unshed tears. He stopped but the violin continued, bearing untold anguish. “Baiji, Baiji,” he called out. Receiving no reply, he hurried inside. The music had stopped but an aching pain engulfed him. Dusk had fallen; he went towards the bonsai jungle. Who knows for how long it would be there? In his young life, Gokul had learnt not to get attached to anyone or anything. He was after all a wanderer. What was his claim on the bonsais? He stopped in his track. Lights, lamplights flickered inside the miniature haveli. He bent to peer inside. There was Baiji shrunk like her beloved bonsais busily setting up her room! She came out and raised her hands to bless Gokul and then vanished inside. Loud impatient blaring of horns made him stop playing the flute.He sauntered up the gate as the honking continued. The car swept in and a middle-aged couple got out. He recognized Amarjit the woman accompanying him must be his wife. The lady looked really annoyed, “ Why do you take so long to open the door? Where’s Baiji? “Maloom nahin” mumbled Gokul. Both of them appeared convinced that Gokul must have killed the old lady. In a smaller car the man who was the property dealer drove in, accompanied by Shiv Kumar. Although it was late in the morning, a chill appeared. Was it a trick of light, the trees swayed menacingly? Everything appeared a little dimmer. As the motley group stood undecided, from a distance a violin played a mournful note. Then they huddled together as Gokul heard Shiv Kumar say, “Haan Saheb, the older servants say violin is heard and often even strange alcoholic smells and drunken shouts…” They scrambled into their cars and drove off without so much as a backward glance. Gokul picked up his flute again and playful happy notes came tumbling out, somewhere the violin joined in the joyful melee…

• Maloom nahin… don’t know
• Pehle to nahi dekha… Never seen it before
• Baiji… elder sister
• pranam… respectful greetings
• pehchana… do you remember me
• bageecha… garden
• batasha, pera, ladoos… sweets offered to gods
• Ashoka tree… calendula
• tulsi…basil
• ber… berry
• amla… Indian gooseberry