The pond

When I was a child I used to live in Uttar Pradesh, my father worked there as a doctor, we used to visit burdwan once in a four year. At that time the pond attached to my ancestral home was well maintained. I still remember the warnings given out to us, to never go near the pond because one of my nephews have been rescued from it. Don’t know about the authenticity of the story but it reined our adventurous spirits for sure.

When I returned to live there in 1985 it was still fully alive and a fisherman used to breed and catch fish there. He had to stop it because of the harassments by the goons of the locality. After that the pond slowly filled up. If I am not wrong it must have been sold by now, that is the plot.

But back then it was beautiful. I have seen so many colours of it. When I first saw it, it was simply blackish from my first floor window and a little transparent from the banks. It never had crystal clear water, may be because of the fishes. During the monsoon the water used to become green, clear, distinct green and then the small plants used to cover the entire surface. It looked really gorgeous but the fishermen used to drag them away and pile in the banks because they disturbed the growth of fish.

There were atleast seven or eight coconut trees, two jack fruit, a berry and four mango trees surrounding it. These coconut trees were home to families of egrets. Their babies cry like human babies and make a strange clucking sound in the night. It took quite a time to get habituated of them but in toto they were quite amusing.

It was quite a beautiful sight to see egrets meditating on the water and the kingfishers on the branches, in case some absent minded fish gives them too easy a catch. When these two birds fly they make a very beautiful sight. Especially the egrets when they are flying against dark monsoon clouds. I adore that scene.

It’s a real joy to have a water body near your home and my home at burdwan had atleast half a dozen visible from the roof top. Water bodies are truly beautiful and are unfortunately the most abused things too. I am a big advocate of them. I personally believe its utter foolishness to fill them up or pollute them unnecessarily. Sooner or later nature settles the score.

Fruit bearing trees

I love flower trees/plants. They are the most gorgeous trees without any doubt. But fruit bearing trees have their own advantages too. Especially for those who love animals and birds and are a little grown up.

My home at burdwan had a lot of fruit bearing trees- coconut, mango, berry, guava, custard apple etc etc.

When we were growing up we used to fight tooth and nail with birds, squirrels and langurs. It was really fun. Now when I look back I think we were far funnier than those innocent children of nature. No sooner than we heard them squeaking in the trees we used to run and try to scare them away. Every one ran away but the langurs. It was next to impossible to make them leave. But we tried all the same.

Then after growing up it became fun to watch them eat. They used to spend hours on the trees, feeding on leaves, fruits. Feeding their children, nursing them, playing. As for birds and squirrels they were every day visitors. That did not reduce their charm by the way.

Its great to have some fruit trees around you if you don’t have destructible properties around them. For example, if you plant a few fruit trees in your vegetable or flower garden you will like rolling on the ground and howling when a group of langur or squirrels have been through them. They are very, very destructive. Sparrows and squirrels are deadly for small plants and langurs are killers.. they destroy almost all plants, sapling or grown up. But if you want to plant only big trees, in that case fruit trees can be quite fun if you want to share them with other children of nature.

As for me, my dream garden contains a small pond and lots of fruit trees surrounding it, and a covered portion full of flower plants.

The mango tree

There were three mango trees beside the pond in my ancestral home. I have seen them since my early childhood and one of them bore quite an ample amount of fruit till the date a mastodon chopped them off for money.

 

The things which I loved most about those trees were they were home for a lot of birds. I used to sleep in a first floor bedroom back then, the branches of one of the trees almost touched my window. I used to sit at the window and watch the birds quite often.

 

Early dawn of summer meant a group of doyels singing a melody from the branches, these tiny birds had a very loud voice, enough to wake you up if you are sleeping near the window, but you wont grumble, that much I can assure you because they will bless you with a divine strain for next half an hour. It starts with a hesitant chirping, soon touches the peak and then stops.

 

Drowsy noon of summer meant the soothing call of doves, who used to sit on the braches in pair and softly sang while endlessly petting each other.

 

There were gorgeous kingfishers and woodpeckers. Both looking for their foods. One in the pond, and the other in the tree itself.

 

Occasional visitors like benebou, who called in the sweetest voice or the nightingales who were mostly silent but sometimes played a little symphony.

 

Then there were wingless beings too, gangs of langurs who came there for mangos or berries. Squirrels who lived there and ran around the branches playfully. It’s a great thing to have a fruit tree like that in home. They always invite birds and animals for food.

A river flowed by

My ancestral homes are situated on both banks of damodar river. One in burdwan, the one in which I lived till 7^th august 2007 and the second one in the opposite side of damodar, where our ancestors lived for centuries. Our old, almost ruined home is there. Every year Durgapuja is held there with a huge gathering. Apart from that Kalipuja is held with a small gathering and every other puja is performed in the temples created by my ancestors.

 

Damodar is most probably one of the most attractive rivers in India, it’s a very wide river, but maximum proportion of the river bed is sand, with small streams of water running through them. Crystal clear water, sometimes just wetting your feet and sometimes upto throat or may be more.  We were terrorized by elders and villagers that there are shifting sands and other scary things so we never ventured much.

 

I personally believe that most probably sometimes the sand banks gave away beneath the feet of a non swimmer plunging him into very deep water without any chances of getting out. We have seen those sand banks without water, they are sometimes very high, fifteen or twenty feet, may be more. And just like any other sand sculpture they are always ready to crumble.

 

I have spent a lot of time in the companionship of this river. One of my favourite hobbies was to wake up before dawn and take the longest possible route to the river bridge, watch the sunrise there and return home.

 

During the durgapujas I used to spend a lot of time having fun on its banks with my nephew and nieces. Splashing in the water and playing with the sand. Or just sitting there and talking for hours. Watching the river and enjoying its serene beauty.

A neem tree

How many of you have had a huge neem tree in your garden? We had one, in our courtyard; I think it was older than me. I recollect seeing it when I have visited my home as a small baby. Then childhood memories are quite tricky, but its trunk was massive so it might have been older than me. It was chopped down by the same troll, the greatest troll I have ever met in my lifetime and am not very keen to meet another or him again.

 

Neem trees are really beautiful, a little messy because they shed leaves but they compensate by wonderfully fragrant flowers. I love the fragrance of neem flowers and they look very beautiful too. I used to put the branches in flower vase after storm, they stayed fresh for a day or two, without fragrance though.. only the beauty.

 

The branches of this tree touched our roof, and created a wonderful hiding place for me, I used to climb down on a wide parapet with a book, or walkman and sit there for hours. I could see the surrounding from the cover of the leaves but was only partially visible to others. It gave a sense of disappearance in the crowd.

 

There were lots of squirrels on that tree; it also invited parrots and other birds with its ripe fruits. Parrots and koyals used to come and eat those bitter sweet fruits, my siblings also relished them, I tried a couple of times but did not love them much. I preferred the flowers and the tree itself.

 

We used to climb it a lot before a creeper completely covered it, that creeper had thorns, so we were deprived of that joy thereafter.

 

When a tree is standing in your garden for years it becomes like a living being, someone you know, I wonder why trolls don’t feel the same way. These people have an inborn hatred for every thing beautiful I believe, and its really painful to live around them.