Old wood

It was a clear sunny morning and the two teams with Ashish# as the captain for Windsors# and Aslam* for Victors*were both standing head on with their teams and almost immediately when the ball was thrown in the air Ashish#  took the lead and passed it to Junaid#  who then kicked it towards Akhtar#   and kept moving by strolling the ball between his legs, towards the forward attack, just then, the ball was snatched by Akram*  who passed it to Ishan*, now Ishan* with a cleaver header passed the ball towards Asif*, who kept it safe between the legs and playing shrewdly went passed the three Windsors#  at the defence, coming from the winger end Aslam* overtook the ball from him and kicked it passed the goal keeper into the goal and eventually falling on the ground with a somersault kick. In just seven minutes of the game, Victors had their first goal and the game continued, after about ninety minutes Victors had won 3-2 and were high on their spirits for their next game, but both the teams gleaming in sweat now left the field for the rest of the classes that day.

(Windsors#, Victors*)

It’s so much fun to just sit and watch these kids play in the morning sun, the sun was almost coming above my head and it was afternoon now and the feeling that I dreaded everyday was here to come, but still there was an almost day with the sun, the beautiful wind and happiness that increases exponentially when I think of these kids.

The school bell then rang and everyone was about to leave, some children who were just waiting for this time to come and rushed to the sounds of those bells of freedom, towards the gates. Others chatted with friends as they went cycling their way home and some small ones waiting with their bottles on their necks like garlands walking and waiting at their autos and rickshaws’. Then there were some senior students at the ground playing with their friends till late in the evening. I bid the children good bye as they went home all of them, almost everyone.

Oh yeah! I forgot, well I am Zaid.

A mango tree who stands at this wonderful end of the football cum cricket cum assembly ground at one side and about half a dozen of two and three storied buildings full of frightful classes and labs to the other and then the majestic gates to my backside, well because I mostly stare at the field. Well this is me here at a very serene and dynamic city with static lives, often broken with the dusty winds and storms, standing tall with an equally magnificent and age old structure, build in a British design philosophy at Sir Mount batten senior secondary school in the pristine old Lahore, Pakistan.

well I am a learned tree and love to keep myself informed about history, people their thoughts, weather, sun, poetry, and moreover I just have to keep my eyes and ears open when I hear the teachers teach even if don't wish to listen when people talk and hear anything dynamic near me or precisely the stomata helps me do it. Yes I breath, see and hear from the same sense organ and actually, it’s enough for me to sustain as I am quite a primitive sought of life form and haven’t developed different organs for different functions. But see this I am happy! And I really don’t mind.
Then, about my name ‘Zaid’.

Guess where did that come from? Well one day a teacher had got all her kindergarten kids to sit under my shade. There where all so small I couldn't stop myself adoring them, then there was this kid Asad, really cute chap and wasn't speaking or eating his lunch while everyone ate.

So the teacher called him near my trunk for she sat on one of my feet (root to be specific) as it protruded out of the ground and said him if you don’t eat your tiffin, this tree you know his name is ‘Zaid’ the crucifier and being so huge he will eat your food in one go. To which the little boy replied ‘yes miss Nehar’ and gave a hard kick with his left leg onto one of my feet with all of his energy staring at me in a disgustful vision from the corner of his eye.

That shitty boy how could he do that!

But then I was happy I had a wonderful name to sport not everyone ah! not every tree gets one.

The one thing that I feared the most was the time that I had to spend alone with no humans or animals around me, just me and a few more like me. It'd be really boring if the fauna would never have existed. The kids, the animals they are so awesome and excite me every time they are around.

And of course I have friends! but then I am a victim politics here. well being a mango tree children love me and I am also respected by people who work here when they talk of me. I've have stood here with dignity from ages now, but other trees are new there is the western group to one side of the field, the south american fauna are in a minority, the Neem, figs and Peepal are my true friends but are on the other side between the buildings, I've never seen them just talk to them sometimes. We talk about everything from about every the summers to children, the new members who are bought and set in pots and also discuss the partition sometimes. we laugh, make fun of the ones who carry boards of signs on them and then few also bitch around over here about others.

When one hears the swoosh of leaves in the wind and breeze we feebly converse, this happens throughout the day, when the wind helps us.

Well that’s all about me, I am about 32 and that is quite young I know. After everyone’s gone I spend the evening and the night everyday looking forward for the next day waiting for the children and more people, and some stupid animals like dogs who love to pee here but I shoo them away throwing leaves and small mangoes, anyways what’s life without all those things.

I'ts raining here from morning, although I get wet in rains  but, I love them as I begin to look good with a kind of brightness on my skin and leaves. The children today come in their raincoats some cycling and some being dropped by their parents and there's a dog shivering with cold, being wet, poor he.

The year gradually passed and these children are in their class XII now, having boards but after that the summer is going to be rocking all day, every day.

Ashish and Aslam’s team is playing again today being the last day before school shuts for a week for renovation before its reopening . I enjoyed their game and fed their appetite, they chatted  after their game for some time, with some children sitting down under my shade and some on my branches till it was late in the evening and then they left.

The next day I saw a group of people, the top management of the school, trustees the principal and few more of them who were new here, they were planning for a games and activities center and were working out a plan for a tennis ground and a basket ball arena in the central area of the school but the central area was dominated by me and a small garden with few flowerpots and shrubs.
So now there was me in between their plans of expansion and children. Well. I could do nothing except facing the axes and oh! That hurt, oooh! That was a blow, then three, four and five. . .

Oh! This hurts people, can you give me some anesthesia before you all further continue with the operation.
I kept shouting but they dint stop, leave that they dint even respond and began cutting me down. So this was it strong people, 32 years of me on this beautiful planet and here I go. I bid salute to everything and everyone I had, and felt for whose endeavors that made me what I am today, strong, big and mighty now, but what is strength that cannot protect oneself.

And yes It hurt me a bit (not exaggerating my real wounds) I try and go off to sleep for an unknown life to come, fallen on the ground, marred badly I still wasn't getting any sleep even after an hour of thinking rubbish. Oh God! What is this, and then I realized I had been thinking myself to be a human and forgot my true self living with them so close.

Well the wood is actually enchanted with immortality and nothing happens to it until charred completely, it’s just the pain and wounds that will heal with time and so, without my dear branches I was put on a huge truck and here I went with the wind.

After a few hours I heard sounds of thumping and shouting, and at once I recollected, it was the famous ceremony at the Wagah border between the soldiers of Pakistan and India. Oh gosh! I am at the border and am I going to India? now this is exiting.

A day of riding through the Thar dessert and almost in the evening the truck had reached a city and I was left there for the whole night.

Early in the morning the truck was been unloaded with almost eight to twelve workers working hard to take me out of the truck and inside a karkhana, this was at Jodhpur.  Over there I was shown to a master sculptor, and I could say that by the shear acumen by which he touched my skin and heard my heart.

He felt each and every up and down of my surface and loved me as his own son and so he decided that he’d use me to make a masterpiece of his. He then took his instruments and started to chip the skin off the massive tan trunk applying all the knowledge and heart to work he chiseled every natural leap and duct, giving me pain and a little anguish sometimes, but then pain is the spice of life, cause after pain what you get is the fruit of patience and hard work to relish.

So here I was a beautiful table, cut immaculately in French art nouveau style, finished with an amazing aroma of oil that brightened my look, feel and adding to all the zing I smelt of wooden spices.
Being this exuberant piece of wonder now, the Raja Man Singh galley was where I was put for nomaish. Not even a day in my new abode a rich business man came in his silver Audi R-8 to take me to his office in Bombay. Well again now, only experts handled me as I am one of the most prized possessions of the rich and the famous.

In Bombay then I was kept in a plush office that did handmade suits for the wealthy and eminent.
Here, people sat and discussed serious business, fabrics after fabrics on me, the warm wools and silks for most of the time veiled me during the meetings, the coffees and trade took all parts of time with the sun and sometimes without it at nights, the mahogany chairs and ivory on the glass were my friends now and all the friends respected equally in this space with life size mirrors from Mathura, doors from Pondicherry, mats from Kashmir and silver from Italy.

Mrs Anita Mehta a women of contempt was the head here and his son Vikrant a tall, lean and gorgeous man, looked after the business, he was a graduate from Cambridge very well learnt and fluent in a couple of  Indo-European languages that were well known.

The office was small but well known with Natasha in the marketing team and Anirudh the design man and few more together they made business that was true by heart, with right price for the right garment, and the customers loved the service making the almost new company shine.

The winter was in its high as I had seen in Decembers’ of Pakistan but in Bombay it was not so, this morning Mr Malhotra with his son Anunay had flown from Paris to meet Mrs Mehta as they reached Vikrant wished them ‘Bonjour’ further asking ‘Ca va?’ to which Anunay replied ‘bonjour je suis bien! Et vous?’  Vikrant said he was well and they went in chatting about the weather and their new office. The Malhotras lived in Lyon, France and had bought a business proposal for Malhotras company for their expansion in Europe.

The discussion ended and the young lads began with conceptualization of a suit for Anunay, he was a smart man of six feet beautiful face, a lean body and smelt Dior Homme, Anirudh took the required details and explained him about the process.

Anunay was actually enjoying all of it, being around with the majors of suit making, he tried a couple of unfinished jacket pieces which were then clasped, nipped and pinned to the right fit, after all the ostent pampering he was escorted to his car by Vikrant.

Leaving them he came up walking and squeaking in his Canali Brogues as he closed the door and sat beside me and Natasha. Removing his blazer he threw it over me, talking about politics and tennis they chatted and laughed sipping the smoking lemon tea. Putting the cup on me Natasha began to lift her palm from my side and almost immediately Vikrant took it in his hand and asked her sternly ‘so what now, where are you going? I said I liked you right’, ‘right’ she said adding ‘but I have to think about it’ speaking as she got up Vikrant also got up with her as he kept his wooden bound note book on me as they left to the balcony, holding hands.

Stories have been my passion from the time I was small, and as I grew up the topics began to get tougher and serious from tales to histories and children playing to business, families and then love.

From the time Vikrant kept his book and left, there was a tingling that I felt with the book and in almost moments I identified the wood on the book was a part of me, I asked my amputated piece and he replied

‘yes, I was made with the wood that was left out from the base of the trunk you were carved from’.
 Then I asked him were there more of such books or things made of me,

‘yes’ my other self replied.

This reply of his gave me a shudder through my spine, resulting in a tear in my eye, and none of these expressions could I utter physically, God! Why was I a tree?

Holding myself from all the grief I asked him what else have I been made into?

The book with wood replied ‘some as wooden crockery, same on peoples walls to be admired and the very little ones ended up in wood pulp and paper therefore, on which humans read this’.