I used to sit beside a new half-built road, near a half-destructed well. I used to sit under a living tree, and sometimes on the dead tree, which lies near the well. This place was surrounded by a glittering township on one side and a village on the other. The place was separated by both of these by open grounds which have weeds and ruins on them. This was my place of smoking a cigarette in two situations. When I wanted reality to blur out and when I wanted to face it. In both of these situations, the passer by’s who used to go by the road made me feel insecure. Sometimes they used to invade my escape and on the other times, my privacy.
I used to sit beside a new half-built road near a half-destructed well, under a living tree. The passerby’s were exceptionally attracted to the tree, maybe because it was exceptionally attractive. But for me, it was my home. I did not care if it is attractive or not, I simply could not share it. The tree though, was not my private property. It was a child Mother Nature bore, and hence it was generous. Innocence made it bear fruit for the hungry and give shelter to the tired, irrespective of its will. Somewhere, the well used to get neglected. The well whose water made the tree. It is true that the making of the tree was unintentional and it happened unknowingly. But it did happen. In the same way the tree didn’t neglect the well intentionally and it happened unknowingly. But the matter of the fact is, it did happen.
I used to sit beside a new half-built road near a half-destructed well, under a living tree. When the passerby’s made me feel insecure, I shifted to the dead tree. After I’d escaped, I used to gaze upon the well, the half-destructed well. It once flourished and made the tree flourish. But when it was dependent and not dependable, it was rotting with water which was gradually turning into acid. It was getting consumed in itself. I could see the living tree panicking, but the tragedy was, it could do nothing more. The dead tree though, on which I was sitting, laughed at the irony. It laughed at the irony of a reason. The reason behind why it was dead and abandoned.
I am sitting on a dead tree made up of my insecurities which was not watered by the well. I was the well and I love you, the living tree. My insecurities laugh at me for not watering them, but you. Because either way I turn out to be half-destructed. I sat beside a new half-built road, near a half-destructed well. I sat under a living tree and then on a dead tree. I simply tried to explain my insecurity.
I sit under the living tree, which will strengthen the half-destructed well. The well will flourish again, it will even provide water to the passerby’s. Together they will build a road which will connect the village and the township. And the dead tree? It will decompose just like insecurities. These decomposed insecurities will make the soil fertile, the soil which connects the well and the tree.
– Shantam Sahai
