I found a misguided entry in a
yellow pocket yesterday while taking breaths through a circular pipe of those
fancy bell-bottom pants.
That were dark grey until a
few days ago and now changing colours to become green, maybe in love with the
parrot stories I read.
My lover has a pony tail
of two strings, that too colourful.
I remember a story teller who died talking about a love which he
could never develop, for he loved talking more.
That was the last “Charan”, a
storyteller from Rajasthan who decoded the mystery of talking trees and i mean
literally. One day, he was passing through an old neem tree just outside his
village and found the tree's sound to be different than the nearby banyan
tree.
He never found the difference between tree sounds, but that day - He did.
Being a storyteller, he was quite busy among the human languages and was proud
of his forefather's story telling genius. He learnt the craft of telling a
story in as many forms as possible since his training. He had the reputation of
a hypnotist. In the manner you don't mind when a peacock eats a snake, the same
way you don't mind when hypnotized women have self-orgasms. He had stories of
all kinds but he had a conscious along with that. He knew that he is repeating
his blood though it is good blood.
But still.
In between, I love snakes more than peacocks.
People seldom focus on the impossible communication processes,
hence we have no communication left today. The Charan once had heard from his
grand father regarding a man who died in love with a tree.His grandfather had
recorded that man's conversations and many stories with the tree. Charan always
loved those stories of a still, lone man.
But that day the Charan while hearing the distinctive sound of the
Neem tree, stopped and opted to talk to the tree. Hence, the Charan sat there
for the next 12 years and wrote a scripture called “peda ni matrabhasha /
Mother tongue of trees”.
It was never a complex system to understand the language of a tree but when he
started intentionally decoding the form of language by his own understanding,
he understood – how similar it was to the music they play in their village.
Hence since that day, he became friends with a “Maangniyaar” - a local musician
who used to sit with him twice a week under the tree to help him interpret its
language.
The Charan soon became a versed
man, and people called him mad. He decoded the laughter and death happening
inside the tree and the times when a tree moves or shifts inside the earth to
be a creature. Hence he started observing the changes in the tree.
But communication was to happen. He stood and tried to decode the sounds,
shifts, improvements, climate changes and seasonal transformations but could
not find a way to know the language of the tree- just the physicality or
guesses.
He became frustrated of being not able to talk to the tree.
One day, He felt alone and walked towards his village to meet his Magniyaar
friend to talk about the unknown result. He really wanted to talk to somebody
or may be, get drunk, wasted, abuse or hang himself. He walked like a retarded
scholar, an ascetic, a scientist or an astronaut, who doesn't care about the
walking.
He stopped suddenly, turned and started walking again towards the neem tree.
However, he crossed the neem tree this time, just went straight ahead, touched
the Banyan tree and closed his eyes.
Night turned to day.
Day turned to night.
Again, night turned to afternoon when he eventually fell down.
“I saw a man at grant road
station one day when I was on my way to Films Division. He was touching the
peepal tree with eyes closed and listening to the tree, I felt eternal, surreal
and human in ‘non-oxford terms’.
The Magniyaar, brought him to his
senses. The Charan,
found differences when he started talking to the banyan tree, the differences
in rhythm, senses, physicality , sounds and form of expansion of the tree
itself. He started comparing both trees and hence codes started unfolding in
front of him dramatically. He knew more than his musician friend now.
The Magniyaar couldn't understand anything and called him
"mad". Let's
laugh to that.
The Charan kept doing the same
thing; he studied the difference between both of them and hence studied the
language.
Next day, when he was touching the tree, he himself felt like a tree. Alone and
strong!
He cried at the stories the tree
told to him. About the years the tree was born in; an old, flying device of cow
horns that 'he' had seen; the weekly meetings of dead musicians; killing
parrots to grow faster; a man who fell in love with his father and died; the
silk vendor who once tried to have sex with him; homages to many thieves;
magician, birds, black magic apprentices; the few love lorn women who hung on his barks;
singing for constipation; rattling a snake to scare it, making jokes about the
banyan tree, scaring the young ghosts, being alone and sad; the unexpected
visit of old death-friends; shifting of trees; waiting and expecting for
something always, and more.
They both cried, laughed,
mesmerized and ...
The Charan heard the stories for many nights and days. He slept under the tree
and felt the only home he had always imagined. The last night, he brought some liquor on loan and asked
his musician friend to come under the tree and play the songs for the tree.
They sang and danced the whole
night.
Imagine the party.
In the morning, the Charan was off
to a far land to speak to more trees, as he said. Hence in lieu of the loan, he
left his “peda ni matrabhasha / Mother tongue of trees”.
This is being kept by the man who lent him until death. He knew the value of
it, later stolen by the musician’s son and made music out of. They talked about
the tales of witches, snakes, men and what not.
Forget about that!
What I know now is that the Charan
had become a tree just outside the village and in the night recites the tale of
a man who knew the language of the tree.
I really wished if he could be my grandfather.
Oh and,
to learn the language, go and touch a tree.
Ask the stories.
