A television sits in the corner of the living room. On one of the sofas, a little girl in pigtails sat revising her daily portions. She read aloud; she always read aloud and learnt. “Throw away your television sets,” she read with tone. She liked to hear her own voice roll over the highs and lows of her melodramatic narrations. The mango tree outside the window swayed with her narration, in the monsoon wind. It had seen many a June. All these years the month was just restless rain and bellowing winds. But for a few years now, the scene is entertaining. There are two wobbly children in the house now. Two little bundles of hope running around playing in the mud and dirt till their father came thundering to drag them inside. It is fascinating to watch them; their oblivious innocence and playful fights. The little girl always tails after her sister. They run around the well laughing with a tinge of fear as their mother chases the haywire children with a guava stick she broke off from the lawn. June mornings have been a sight ever since they came. School reopens and they hurry in stiff new skirts and little shoes in the pouring mornings with their umbrellas still smelling of the leather from the shop. Their voices float over the rain in the evenings as they enthusiastically read to their mother, competing for her appraisal at what they have learnt. That is how the mango tree knows June has come. Rain is no season now. As the calendar turns to July, the voice of learning dies down and gets back to its normal pace and pitch. It does not falter again. Their mother must be very proud.
The mango tree does not flower like it used to before. Years of neglect has taken its toll. Their father is busy running around making money for his princesses. They are not home these days. The morning cries for socks and hair bands ceased two years ago. The mornings are quiet now and the mango tree has no way of knowing if June ever came. They don’t hurry out the door chewing breakfast and grabbing their ties. It is a sight the tree misses. But it showers yellow leaves when the big girl comes home often. She noisily opens the rusty gates at early hours of the night; drooping with a backpack bigger than her, her curls now cut short standing up in an aura, with a small bag full of sweets for the younger girl who has now grown well. As she runs out to take the bag from her sister, the mango tree can’t help but remember how she used to grab her sister’s kindergarten bag the same way at the gate; years ago. She still has the same light in her eyes as she takes in her sister, relief and comfort. The tree sees more of the big girl these days. She is the light in the corner room throughout the night. She is the slender figuring dancing in the dark of the living room at odd hours of the night. She is the ruffled ball of unruly hair popping out her head at noon; walking around the room, brushing her teeth. She is the forlorn figure which, some nights, settle near the living room window and sits there for minutes in a row. It is then, the tree sees her eyes; eyes dreaming to soar.
Its bark has years of layers on it now, trapping the memories of the peach painted house and its people. The elder girl has shrunk to a smaller frame. She fits against the others’ chest like a cuddle bear. But at nights as the little town sleeps, she starts thinking aloud and a universe opens its wings. She talks to the triangle shaped piece of sky visible through the tree’s branches. She tells it her miseries and joys, her novel plot and hypothetical scenarios, her schemes and her flaws. The mango tree listens and sways to every little joy and droops to every little hurt. It now knows of a heaven far away; of the place where the nights are livelier than the day, of the people who have kept her good, of the days she had breathed freedom, of a hostel room she misses, of the paths she wandered and places she didn’t go. Every night the mango tree mourns for her. Every ripe leaf that hits the wet soil at dawn carries her miseries, too heavy for it to bear. As the moist morning slowly ebbs away, the father’s voice spurs up the mango tree. He is waking up the younger girl. She comes swaying with sleep and grabs her phone before turning on that old fat television in the corner. The cricket match of the previous night plays a while before she changes the channel. “Boost is the secret of my energy,” the man drank from a bright red sipper while the triangle piece of sky outside the sleeping girl’s window slowly disappeared into the morning sky. The mango tree opens up itself ready for the day, but before it breathes the day, the tree prays for the girl’s return to her kingdom.
Edited by Abhirami G
Article 19 