By: Sheenam Dhingra Tagged Atman, Childhood, Creative Writing, Experience, Fields, Love, Memory, Pain, Rumi, Trees, Writer’sblog, Writingprompt
Although the blog has been created and posted by Sheenam Dhingra, this beautiful piece has been penned by one of our Atman participants, Dr. Gagan Bhatia as a response to a writing prompt.
“I AM IN YOU AND I AM YOU. NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND THIS UNTIL HE HAS LOST HIS MIND.” -RUMI
Childhood is the time when we are like a fresh slate. Every experience gets engraved on us and becomes a memory to be pondered upon for rest of our lives. It seems surreal when we realise later that what we have been thinking at particular moments was being perceived by us in a different way back then. I won’t call it a wrong way because as we grow with time and experience and our consciousness expands as we begin to understand things and relive them differently thereafter. I remember one such incident of my childhood days: days which were all about playing, eating, sleeping, fighting with siblings on petty things and getting sad and disheartened when other siblings were appreciated. I remember how innocently I used to believe that my parents only love my brother only because I was being teased of being adopted and loved less….ahh! those were the days which still bring a smile on recollection.
In our summer holidays we used to visit our grandparents who lived in a village, leading a very simple and grounded life. They had a large piece of land, on one side of which were mango trees and other side which was a field where vegetables were grown. All of my cousins including me and some other kids from the village used to spend most of the time playing under these trees. We would climb on to trees and try to fetch fruits by aiming at them with stones and our Mali Bheenu Chacha (as we use to call him) would play with us and tell us stories. He used to eagerly wait for us every summer and say, “ bachchon ke aane se mera baagh khill jaata hai.”
He used to be overjoyed in our presence but there was one tree he was very particular about. He never allowed us to throw stones at it or climb it and always guarded it. Most of the time, the kids from the village would tease him by going near that tree and breaking branches and fruits before he could catch them. I could feel his helplessness in his anger. I remember kids calling him ‘mental’, we would see him talking to the tree at times and declare among ourselves that he has lost his mind. But somewhere deep inside I could feel his pain.
Days passed, we all grew, got entangled in our lives, and stopped visiting the village. Whenever all of us got together on some occasion, we used to remember our childhood days and discuss Bheenu chacha. After many years I was told by my relatives that Bheenu had lost his only son to high fever when he was just five and that particular tree was planted by him and his son together. This was the reason why he was so attached to that tree and took special care of it. The tree had kept a part of his son alive for him. How he nurtured that tree with all his love makes me wonder…KYA YAHI PYAAR HAI?