One Tree

A girl child lives in a forest under a big tree. The tree is huge and probably hundreds of years old. Its bark is thick and its leaves are lush green. Big juicy fruits blossom in the branches of this tree which feeds so many birds, animals and also this small little girl every day. The girl calls the tree her “maa” and is convinced that she needs no one else to live her life well. She takes care of the tree with all her means, and the tree takes care of the girl. She eats the fruits from the tree and nourishes the tree by watering it every day, talking to it about her adventures in the forest, reading stories to it, and hugging it for hours.

Every day at dawn and dusk, the girl hears a distant voice from far away calling her by her name “Maya”. The voice calling her is familiar but she can’t tell who it is. She is tempted to go and find out. This goes on for several days, and her mind slowly starts to drift, it wanders away from her everyday life with her ever beloved “maa” – the huge tree she lives with. One day almost in a trance, at dawn when she wakes up, she leaves the tree and goes away following the distant voice calling her name. And she does not return.

The tree lives on without the little girl. It lives on feeding the birds and the animals that have not yet broken their trust with her. Years pass by and slowly but surely the tree starts dying of old age. Its leaves start drying off and its fruits slowly cease to blossom. The birds and animals stop coming, and its branches start decaying one by one. In this state, one day the little girl now grown up into a woman comes back. She looks at the tree in its decaying state and is consumed with guilt and sorrow. She does not know what she could to revive the tree back to how she had left it years ago. She weeps in despair, goes near the tree and sits under it hugging its bark the way she used to when she was a small girl. Time passes by, days pass by, and the girl does not leave the bark for one moment and she keeps hugging it for days to come. Slowly the girl’s body metamorphoses into the tree, becoming a part of the tree, and in time she becomes the tree.

In the next few days, this tree is again seen to sprout new and fresh green leaves in some of its branches. And in the next few months, the tree gets fully revived into its original form, just the way it was before. The birds and animals start coming back and flocking in its branches again. Maya’s sacrifice has brought back life to Mother Nature with or without her even knowing about it.

As all is well now, a little boy comes running to the tree, stands in front and looks up at it with a big smile and eyes full of wonder.

 

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