Climbing the Guava Tree

Centered in the front yard stood our guava tree. As old as I was. Planted by my uncle who used to live in Ferozabad and bought for only 75 paise after sufficient bargain. The tree was full grown, and bore fruits two times a year. The summers and winters. Presence of a tree presented lot of adventure opportunity. The climb wasn't tough at all. And if you'd do it everyday, you'd be an expert. Lots of leaves would accumulate in our yard. Fallen fruits. Bird poops. Unwelcome ooglers, trying to get a hand at fresh fruit would stalk here and there about our house. And lo, when we were asleep in afternoon, we'd awakened by a smashing jump or a stone thrown in attempts made by children. They would sometimes get lucky, and would run away with handful or bagful of gorgeous guavas. We had a fence around the tree. But easily circumvented. In evening we'd water the tree using an old yellow pipe. For the water to stay around tree roots we had made a 2-3 inch mud wall around the stem. And it was repaired now and then. During the seasons we'd eat lots of guavas. And even send some to our neighbours and relatives far away. The guavas were really sweet. We used to watch the entire process of fruit-bearing curiously, as that was the time we were learning how plants reproduce in our school biology books. During vigorous storms, the rustling of leaves would resound all around the house. It seemed the tree fell at any moment. But it wouldn't. It would provide shade to rickshaw pullers, who would stop and take a nap in their rick shaw parked under the tree. We had 3 bamboo poles that we used for getting the guavas free of the tree and experience the free fall. Sometimes I would climb the wall and jump onto one of the branches to reach the fruit. The branches weren't that strong. They would arch out if I was going too far. But the fresh puply guavas were well worth the risk. The tree was like an intimate part of our lives. We'd enjoy the guavas with white and black salt. And sometimes eat too much of them.

Recently I went home, I have been out of home for 9 years now. And found that my mother got the tree uprooted. I was all heart-broken to see that and still to this day. Why did she do that? Why? I looked at the uprooted stem and the empty space where the tree used to stand, and almost cried.