A slight hint of scented breeze stops her in her tracks. She looks around. There is a Karanj and a Rain Tree and some other big trees. She moves up and down the footpath. She can not lead herself to the perfume bottle. She stands just under me and looks at the tiny, really really tiny green jewels scattered on the ground. Then she looks at the giant me and wonders how could these tiny flowers be mine.
She picks my tiny flowers delicately. She caresses my even tinier greenish-yellow petals. She looks up, at me intensely. Her intense gaze pierces my heart. I succumb to her gaze. I reveal my flowery bottles of perfume, the cluster of whitish-yellowish-green flowers. I can now see her face becoming brighter and brighter.
Her eyes smell my tiny tiny bottles of perfume. Her nose responds a sweet “Thank You” to me. I am really worried now. She is going crazy. She is loosing her ‘senses’.
She calls her lover with her heart. He comes running. Her eyes point to my sweet fragrant flowers. Her hands lead his eyes to me. Oh My God! She is going crazy more and more.
She is dancing with joy, while being a ‘statue’. She is laughing in silence. She is pulling me into her heart.
She finds my new red leaves just too pretty. Man! She is staring at me! Should I call it ‘day-teasing’!
Her lover takes care of the traffic on the busy street of Basvangudi. He keeps telling her, ” There is a car. “
“There is a footpath behind you, climb on that. Be careful. “
” Hey! Hey! Don’t look up at the tree and move forward on the road.”
He truly cares for this crazy woman.
She adores my young leaves. She looks up and up and up. She now finds my seeded fruits high up in the sky. I have already lost the brown capsule holding my long winged seeds. I am about to disperse those seeds.
She wonders how I turn those delicate, fragrant, tiny flowers into such a woody brown fruit. What a fool! Trying to reason with Nature.
She roams around and meets my other siblings. Her lover follows her quietly. He know that she has completely forgotten his existence. She has forgotten her own existence. Right now, on this busy street, amidst the humdrum of human-life, she is no more. She is Me now.
Next time when she comes around, I will engulf her in a dense shade under my large canopy of heavy branches laden with dark green mature leaves.
She meets me again! But I am myself a young tree at that place. I can not give her a big hug of shade. I do give her my scented bottles hidden among my now darker green, mature leaves.
