When I took this picture last December, I never had the faintest thought that the trees will be chopped down and the courtyard would become a shithole of a place. But, it happened, and now I think the dust particles in this picture( yes, it is DUST)which gave the pic a sunshine sort of beauty was in fact a sign, a sign of the doom which was coming.Actually, the tree-killing fever had started long back in campus.
Now, I stopped going to my old room completely, I hardly come out of my makeshift room in the new hostel, and even if I do, I try not to go to the old hostel. I some how have this feeling that if you stop looking at the bad picture, you will stop feeling bad about it.However, that is evidently not true. Since then I have been constantly thinking about the shade, the trees... It was a Jamun tree which brought back lovely memories of my ma's home whenever I came out of the room. I used to talk over the phone for hours, sitting under the tree... Only when I left the place, I realize the attachment I had with the tree. I was always a tree person. From the Jamun, to the Rubber Trees of kottayam, to the gulmohurs of CMS, to the treelessness of SH,to the Jamun here. It was just a week before that Cholapandian climbed the Jamun and picked bunches of fruits. Sharanya gave a handful to me and I was standing there infront of my ma's house, four years old and waiting for Martin Chettan to bring us kids the Jamun bunches. The tongues went black that day.
Yes, this is a lament. The tree was gone after a week, that day.
(Aswathy and Renu, Studying in the hostel courtyard, January evening,2009)
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