Out of the Window

I take around 3 – 4 breaks a day at work. During breaks, I take coffee or sometimes tea. However, my best refreshment during the breaks is to watch out of the window at our neighbours. Not much to see – the house wasn’t occupied. After a few days, I started noticing a couple of humming birds in their garden. And two squirrels.

The humming birds and the squirrels lived in a mango tree. The birds and the squirrels seemed to live harmoniously. They always seemed to be doing something. Don’t they take breaks like us? Don’t they have weekends? Why are they eternally so agile and appear to be doing something or the other all the time? Once they’ve had their fill – what else do they have to do? I wonder at them and when I go back to work I am totally refreshed and ready to tackle the business at hand with greater vigour. Without their knowledge they enthused me in my work. I shared their lives and they made me happy every time I needed to have a break from work.

There were huge trees in the garden – tamarind, mango, jack fruit and some others which I wouldn’t know. The house was very small and very beautiful. It must have been quite old. It definitely looked over 70-80 years old, perhaps built during British days.

One day I saw huge trucks coming in. After three days, the vintage house was razed to the ground. Someone must have bought the land and the house and the garden and my pets. Inspite of the presence of such huge machinery, I could still see the birds carrying on with their usual business – hopping from branch to branch. A couple of days later, I saw earth movers – within a day the small elegant house gave way to a huge and ugly excavation. It appeared as though sharp claws of a witch were gnawing away at the innards of Cinderella.

The worst was yet to come. They cut the trees – all of them. The big one and old ones, the wise and samritan souls – all were chopped down. Man knows no mercy.

Until the first tree was cut I could see my birds and squirrels. Then they disappeared. I wonder where they would have gone – or are they dead – like the trees. I mourned for them. I even had a hope – maybe they will be back. The mango tree was spared the axe – the birds should be knowing; and the squirrels. The tree must have escaped just because it was very close to the fence. It is spring now and instead of the tree flowering and fresh green swaying leaves in the fast growing branches – I see the old and haggard mango tree covered with reddish dust. It looked tired. The leaves were still and so were the flowers. Maybe, the tree is mourning too.

After a few months – maybe there will be a huge office complex. Maybe one day some one will be sipping coffee and looking at me from the window and wondering – what happened to this Garden City. And he would go back to work – just like me.

But the trees are not going to be back. Not the birds; not the squirrels; and not my enthusiasm for work. Life goes on – but where?