Picture Postcard
Or How to write about Ukai? - II
For the majority of the last few years I have been coming to Ukai in the evening. But today I decided to come in the morning. I did not know why but I decided to enter a lane in sector IV near the workshop area. Usually I go to sector II where I used to live two decades ago or to the part of sector IV which is closer to the Jalaram temple. I came around 10 and the sun was already blazing as if it was 1 in the afternoon. As I entered the lane I found relief in the shade of the large Shirish trees flanking the road.
The familiar smell of the burnt leaves was in the air and I immediately noticed the smoke coming out of the small mounds of dry Shirish leaves outside the gates of many houses. The smoke was dense since the mound included some fresh leaves alongside the dry ones. I saw another lady clearing dirt and the leaves outside her gate with a coconut broom stick. But how much dirt can a broom stick remove from the ground? Isn’t the broom, after a point, only scraping the surface of the soil and producing fresh dirt in the very act of cleaning? As a child I used to be immensely bothered by this act for I would find myself trapped in this endless loop of cleaning and producing dirt.
Anyways, this was a routine affair in the lives of the residents of Ukai; by which I mean that every morning and evening, they would clear the heaps of Shirish leaves that would have gathered in their verandahs and outside their gates, form them into a tiny dune and burn them. For this reason Ukai was perpetually shrouded in a dream-like haze formed by this smoke. If someone were to think of picture postcard for Ukai, then the image of a lane lined with large Shirish trees and smoke billowing from mounds outside each gate would be the perfect one.
Of course there are plenty of other trees in the verdant landscape of Ukai like the mango, neem, babool, etc. Yet the Shirish has a special place; it has the domineering presence. Until recently, I did not even know the name of the this tree and for some time I had believed it to be Gulmohar. But a year or two ago while cycling through Ukai one fine evening I asked an old man passing me, “Dada, aa jhadnu shu nam che?” (Dada, what is the name of this tree?) Squinting his eyes, he first looked at me and then at the tree, “Aa shirish nu jhad che.” (This is the Shirish tree.) I had quickly noted it down in my journal. I also remember googling ‘Shirish tree’ and coming across its scientific name - Albizia Lebbeck.
The old woman has receded back into her house after setting fire to the mound of leaves at her gate. The street is totally empty of humans and the only creatures I see at this hour are the cows. There are cows on my left, and there are cows on my right. And when I look straight there are even more cows in the open ground. Some of them grazing silently and some others dropping fresh dung around. When I walk a few steps towards the ground, I see a dog sitting in the gutter. He must have gone inside to find relief from the heat. After a minute I see a large group of buffaloes heading up the road and with their swaying heads it seems they are walking straight towards me with an air of purpose. But when they arrive closer they change their course as if I did not turn out to be the person the were looking for.
In five more minutes, I see another batch of buffaloes coming towards me. The earlier one has disappeared. Am I sure that I am not seeing the same batch of buffaloes? No. This one has some cows too. And all of them have yellow tags hanging down their ears or horns (which also look like ears). Maybe for that reason, everywhere you walk in Ukai, you will find the ground littered with brownish and yellow Shirish leaves, twigs (also from the same tree) and lumps of dry cow dung. A lot of times when the cows and buffaloes walk on the road, the dung is flattened on its surface and permanently becomes part of it. And perhaps that is why almost no road of Ukai is without a patch of dung over it.
But other than the cows and dog I see two children sitting under the shade of another huge Shirish. After chatting for a few minutes they start walking down the road. One of them picks a stone and hurls it high at a thick branch of the tree. The boy is elated because he has been able to hit it. Growing up in Ukai even I used to play this game of hurling stones at trees with other friends. Often times I would be scared that the stone upon landing would crack somebody’s head. I am surprised that the game is still around. I wonder if this is a quintessentially Ukai thing given its large trees.
The Shirish trees with their huge trunks and intricate and far reaching branches appear as if they have been here forever or at least before I came to be in this world. What astonishes me beyond imagination is the fact that all these trees were exactly as big when I was a 5 year old child roaming the streets of sector IV two decades ago. It seems as if they haven’t grown an inch in all these years, that not even a single branch or or an extra leaf has come to claim more space. But who knows what nooks and crannies of the sky these large Shirish trees have conquered over these decades? And in any case trees don’t grow old as our parents do or as we ourselves do, with visible signs of extension and decay, isn’t it?
The dog that had been resting so far, leaps out of the gutter. With his brown body now covered partially with a layer of greyish liquid, he runs on the road leading towards the Masjid. For a moment, I have the hallucination that this is the real color of the dog’s skin. . .