The Tree and The Sapling

I should have taken a seat facing the crowd. I could have studied the Club-members and the staff; and, the colonial style building with narrow corridors, polished wood, hushed whispers and brooding portraits of who knows who. But then, given my grumpy mood, I would have smirked at the fat asses filling plastic chairs, chattering, seeking attention; and, bracketed people with caricatures and stereotypes. I would have complained to my friend, the Club-member, about the slow service and the average fare; somehow feeling superior to be just a guest. Instead of that, I sat at a corner-table of that Club’s vast lawn, with four old schoolmates I had not met for a long time, feeling lonely, staring at the desolate car-park, the silent motionless trees that lurked in the shadows, brooding over saplings and potted plants that seemed to have strayed in, quite lost like me.

I was not bored with my group, just disconnected, finding it tough to fit in. There was talk of old school days, gossip, families and pets, trips abroad and crude anecdotes, money and grand purchases, smart moves and entrepreneurs, real-estate and big deals, politics and connections. All quite matter-of-fact, not really blatant boasts, and I had little to contribute. It used to be like that in school. There were people like me, standing alone on some stage searching for words and missing action, and there were groups who were in the thick of it, in the know of all the tales and the characters in that small world. My attention flitted in and out, grasping the beginning or the tail-end, missing the middle, focusing more on the trees and the saplings that seemed to have something to say to me.

‘We met Mohit’s parents,’ I heard the doctor say.

I looked up and asked, ‘Mohit?’

‘They were really happy to see us,’ the IT entrepreneur said.

‘They still keep his room as it was. It was touching, really touching. His photo, sketches on the wall, a lamp always lit… for twenty five years… weird, man!’ I think that was from the general manager of some company in the Gulf.

‘His sister was there, sexy female that one…’ the PR agent said.

‘Every month, they hold a prayer for him. She asked us to join and we went…’ the IT guy said.

The GM added, ‘…very emotional, man! His mother hugged and thanked us for making Mohit happy… to be with his old friends.’

‘Tchah! The sister didn’t hug us…’ the PR agent said.

‘We went to Sheela-madam’s house, too,’ the doctor reported.

‘She’s down with the big C, man! She was really happy to see us,’ the GM reported.

‘Which subject did she teach us?’ the IT guy asked.

‘Economics,’ the doctor replied.

‘No, man, she used to teach us in junior school,’ the GM said.

‘She never taught us… we just used to drool over her,’ the PR guy said.

‘Don’t be gross!’ That came from the doctor or the IT guy.

‘Mohit…?’ I tried again.

‘To tell you the truth, I couldn’t place him… even when I saw his photo…’ the doctor whispered.

‘He was in our class. He used to wear those tight elastic shorts. We used to tease him, remember?’ the IT guy said.

‘Don’t remember him at all,’ the doctor said.

‘Come to think of it, Sheela-madam must have been our age now… man!’ the GM said.

‘She was sexy! Do you remember Siva? He used to look at her and…’ the PR guy said with a crude gesture.

‘Yuck… don’t bull-shit…’ again, that was either the doctor or the IT guy.

‘Really!’ the PR guy confirmed.

‘Do you remember Rajan-sir?’ the GM asked the group.

‘Who can forget that bastard?’ the IT guy said.

‘He used to stick his hand in Sheela-madam’s blouse,’ the PR guy said.

‘No way…’ the doctor protested.

‘Yeah, I have seen it… they were in my school-bus,’ the GM said.

‘Lucky bastard…!’ the PR guy said.

I remember Mohit, though his name slipped my memory many years back. He was a queer chap. Fair, soft-spoken, inconspicuous and inconsequential except when he was teased about his tight elastic shorts. We were not really friends. I cannot even remember when or why he started showing me his sketches. He used to call it modern-art. It was roughly the same each time, a sketch of a tender sapling with just one leaf beneath a leafless old tree.

‘What is it?’ he used to ask me.

‘A man standing next to a sapling,’ I told him the first time.

‘That’s a tree, not a man,’ he informed.

I did not tell him that the tree looked more like a scarecrow with arms outstretched. If not for the leaf, I would have mistaken the sapling for a stick figure of a boy. I did not tell him that either. I am not sure why I played along. Each time he presented his modern art, the interpretation had to change.

When I guessed, ‘It looks like heavenly light on the tree and the sapling… God looking over…?’

He corrected me, ‘Just romanticism here… summer glare.’

Once when the sketch seemed dark, ‘Heavy...’ I tried and paused.

‘Exactly…!’ he cried. ‘The heavy weight of imperialist power standing over the poor developing…’

We did not discuss his last sketch.

‘Keep it,’ he said, handing it over, holding my hand briefly. He returned to his seat, hunched up over the table, looking sad and preoccupied.

The sapling did not have its leaf. The old gnarled tree and the young sapling were bent over. Probably the devastation after a cyclone, I had guessed. I still have that sketch with me and over the years I have tried various perspectives. I did not get a chance to ask him. He stopped coming to school, and a week later, he killed himself.

I was brought out of that reverie by some light-hearted brawl at my table.

The PR guy was telling the doctor, ‘Come on, he targeted you too, didn’t he?’

‘Of course, not…!’ the doctor protested.

‘Hey, Rajan-sir came after all of us…’ the GM said.

‘Yeah, remember that excursion…’ the IT guy said.

‘Bloody hell that was…!’ the PR guy exclaimed.

‘They chucked him out only after Mohit killed himself,’ the doctor said.

I had heard about that, many years after leaving school. Was that sketch about a man and a boy, I had thought. I could have guessed it when he gave it to me. What if I had done or said something about that in that week before he killed himself?

If I had told him my guess, Mohit would have asked me, ‘How did you guess right?’

I could have told him, ‘It’s not a guess. I know.’

‘How did you know?’ he, or I, would have asked.