When Mother Died…
artwork by amina
My mother passed away in July 2008. She was the most remarkable person that I have ever come across. She is the reason I think I have survived some dicey periods in my life - because she did what mothers do best: worry about and pray for their children, no matter what their age. No, I have not seen her apparition, nor has she visited me in my dreams. But I noticed that the three-storey-tall yellow-and-crimson flowering hibiscus tree died towards the end of the same year. Or, so I had thought. I had snapped off a twig from the original tree in 2001 (from ASM Abdur Rab's garden estate, I should mention) and planted it in the inner courtyard of our house, not expecting it to take root. But it did, and grew immensely, blossoming profusely throughout the year, year after year. It was purely due to the care given it by my mother, eventually reaching the height of our three-storey building. My mother was an ardent lover of nature. Inevitably, mango, coconut, star fruit (kamranga), a variety of other fruit-bearing, plus mahogany and devdaru, trees and flowering plants dotted the spaces in and around our house. A gnarled old kamini tree of at least sixty-year vintage continues to flower regularly as well as to give an idea about the life span of our venerable dwelling. Until the day the hibiscus tree died, and, after a hiatus, reaffirmed its death. Mother had also nurtured a baby mynah to adulthood in a tin-roofed shed we had built for it in our courtyard. Their early morning conversations, which I surreptitiously observed on a number of occasions, made me believe that the mynah was human. Then the mynah also died. Leaving me to wonder about the strange circumstances of the two deaths within a year of Mother's passing. The tree first. We, meaning my three brothers and yours truly, would not even think about handing over the plot to a developer as long as Mother was alive, but, what with all of us scattered now, we had to take a decision. We decided to hand the whole thing over to a developer - the best option available under the circumstances. Soon the deed was done, and I was left with a hollow feeling at the end of all the signings. The impact of the loss of the greater part of my life hit me in stages, until the day arrived when I felt in my heart that a big chunk of my own self was gone for forever. During the transfer process, the tree was resplendent with flowers, including one branch high up with slender offshoots that displayed blossoms that had reverted to a primary red colour in striking contrast to the myriad yellow-and-crimson beauties all around them. Then, not too long after, little by little, but unmistakably, the flowers began to shrivel and fall off. That could be attributed to their natural life cycle, but the buds were falling off, too, without getting a chance to show off their splendour. Then the leaves followed suit, even the pale green new leaves. One day, they were all gone, leaving the bare skeleton of the tree for me to behold. Was it a plant disease, I wondered, looking at bark whose sheen was fading and a trunk looking like dead wood. Well, I consoled myself, it's come to the end of its normal life cycle. Although the white hibiscus tree, a couple of years older in another section of the compound, was in full bloom. As the day for vacating the house drew near, however, the owner of an adjacent property expressed an interest in joining our offer to the developer. Subsequent negotiations meant that we were given a few months extension of stay. Within a fortnight of the extension, one morning I woke up to see, to my utter amazement, tiny pale green leaves sprouting all over the tree. It had come alive! The leaves grew to their full length, and then buds began to sprout forth from every branch, large and small. Flowers then duly showed up, and showed off, an array of yellow-and-crimson against a dark green backdrop. And with the mynah chattering away, Nature was at peace in and around my house. One day, however, we heard the news that the negotiations between the developer and our neighbour had fallen through, and we were to vacate the premises within a couple of months. There would be barely time enough to be able to observe Mother's first death anniversary in the house she had presided over for most of her life. Within a week of getting the news, the tree began to get sick again - shedding its flowers and, eventually, its outer sheen. Now, with our departure imminent, the tree has not recovered, has not shown any sign of returning to life. No doubt it will be cut down, and will only remain as a memory to a time gone by. Even as the tree was finally giving up its ghost, I noticed that the mynah was growing listless, hardly touching its food. In fact, in a few days it fell completely silent, until one morning we found it dead, lying on its back on the floor. We buried it in a corner of our courtyard. As I get ready to leave this old house, I feel that I am leaving behind a way of life that had meaning only as long as Mother was with us in person, but one whose time has passed, which has vanished in the glitzy mega-slum that is Dhaka city today, far removed from the large town of open air and open spaces of the days of my childhood and youth.
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