2
Prose
Termites
Pravin Lulekar
I found a rare moment of peace under the huge almond tree in the backyard. The last dew days had been strenuous. Exactly the reason why I avoid coming home during holidays. But as I came under the tree’s shadow, noticing splattered raw almonds on the floor spilling out a deep, pleasing red, I looked up at the tree and felt strangely calm. The leaves together formed a canopy, through which rays of sunlight penetrated softly. I thought the leaves were telling me, it’s ok, we here for you.
I thought of a story. A traveller plants a tree at a point she often crosses in her travels. To rest, rejuvenate. But it never blooms. She keeps getting disappointed, and yet returns to it, waters it, with hope, every time. The tree stares at her every time with dry, sapless, thorny branches.
I wondered if my parents had planted the almond tree together. If so, is their love, their bond still alive in the sap that runs through the tree? In the soil that holds it together? Very Wordsworthian! I thought.
I heard noises inside, and felt a need to rush. ‘It’s not your responsibility to solve their problems’, ‘You have the choice to be happy, to walk out’, my therapist’s words echoed in my mind. The tightness, the burden I felt on my chest receded a little, I paused, and walked calmly.
Mom and dad were staring inside the almirah. Dad, as clueless as always, about how to solve a domestic problem. Mom, agitated as always, about how there’s a new problem now, and how she has to solve it alone. A rare moment of quiet had engulfed them as well. Yet, I could hear words, suffocated and waiting to burst.
I dared and peeked inside. There were little yellowish brown creatures eating whatever they found. Mom looked particularly upset holding a saree, half gone now.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Termites,’ mom said with tinge of hopelessness about how her son is as clueless about household matters as her husband.
‘Is that what’s eating the drawing room carpet?’ dad wondered.
They looked at each other with surprise, with a forgotten, lost mutual understanding. And then rushed to the hall, and looked under the torn carpet. There were swarms of those yellowish brown things there. I felt jitters, and looked away.
The hall looked strange. The paint, though done last year, had a hue of dullness. I felt the whole house crumbling. The sofa had lost its fluffiness, the table’s drawer was forever sliding out, the ceiling fan squeaked dangerously… I felt that burden on my chest with full force now.
When I looked back at the termites, they were being attacked with some pesticide by dad. The carpet was being held up by mom. ‘It must be in the table as well,’ she said. ‘Hmm,’ dad said with the understanding that that was the next target.
I suddenly felt the leaves of the almond tree smiling at me again. Its sap, a fruit of the labour, love of the hands that planted it, I felt it running in my veins. Like its roots, I felt held together by a moist, warm soil. How Wordsworthian, I thought!