Flame Tree Road

“How clever the fishermen are, don’t you think?” mused Shibani. “They just float along singing songs and the otters do all the hard work for them.”

“It is not as simple as it looks, beloved,” said Shamol. “It has taken generations to perfect this technique. Otter fishing is an ancient tradition passed down from father to son. The otters are bred in captivity. They would never survive in the wild. It is a symbiotic relationship between man and beast. But all these old traditions are dying out, aren’t they? More and more fishermen leave the village to find work in the city. Soon the memory of the otter fisherman will remain only in song. Then that, too, will be forgotten.” He got to his feet and held out his hand to Shibani to help her up. “Come, my queen, we must go back.”

They walked back to the basha, hand in hand, fingers entwined like teenagers.

“There is so much I wish for our two boys,” said Shamol. “I want them to be curious and have faith in their own ideas. I want them to know the wonder of books but also learn from the river and the sky.”

Shibani hugged his arm tightly. “The most important thing is they have you for their father,” she said in her honeyed voice. “You have given them everything. Now it’s up to them.”

CHAPTER

8

Biren looked forward to Tuesday all week. It was market day—the only day he had time alone with Father. Since Nitin had come along, Biren was forced to share Shamol with his brother. Nitin demanded constant attention. If Father stood up, Nitin wanted to be carried. If Father sat down, Nitin climbed onto his lap. Nitin interrupted important conversations by touching Shamol’s cheek and, once having got his father’s attention, he smiled his foolish smile and went back to sucking his thumb. Father judiciously divided his time equally among family members, the same way he divided a papaya. Mother had an unfair advantage because she and Father shared the same bed and they could talk all night long. The last sound Biren heard as he drifted off to sleep was their whispered conversation.

Thank God for Tuesday. It made up for the shortfalls of the week. The fish market was too far for Nitin to walk, which was just as well, although leaving the house in his presence normally provoked a monstrous howl. The only option was to slip out undetected in the wee hours, a conspiracy that made Biren feel grown up and in league with the adults.

The bamboo grove was still dark and hushed as father and son made their way to the fish market. Shamol carried his umbrella looped over his arm and Biren skipped along swinging two empty jute bags, one in each hand.

“You don’t need an umbrella today, Baba,” Biren chirped. “Look—” he swung his bag in a big joyful arc at the sky “—there is not a single cloud in the sky.”

“I know, mia,” Shamol replied. “My umbrella is broken. I am taking it to the market to be repaired. I don’t want to be caught without it when the rains come.”

The road opened out to an expanse of the river-sky, above which a feeble sun struggled to rise. The tea shop was still shuttered. Underneath the flame tree a baul minstrel sat cross-legged on a carpet of fallen blossoms, lost in his meditation. In his bright orange robe, he looked like a fallen petal himself.

A herd of cows bumped and shuffled across the riverbed toward the grazing ground. They were rounded up by a ragged lad with a neem toothpick stuck between his teeth.

At the ghat, the river ferry had just pulled up to disgorge a crowd of villagers. Vendors with earthen pots on bamboo poles slung across their shoulders pushed past women with large baskets on their heads and tiny babies on their backs. They skirted around an old man who shuffled slowly, dragging a monstrous elephant-size foot, the skin over it knobbed and lumpy like a custard apple.

Biren was about to swivel around to take another look when Shamol cleared his throat. “There’s no need to stare at him, mia,” he said softly.

“What wrong with his foot, Baba?” Biren asked, trotting to keep up with his father. “Why is it so big?”

“The man has elephantiasis, mia, as a result of an unfortunate disease known as filariasis. It is spread by a mosquito.”

Biren looked at a puffed-up welt on his upper arm with alarm.

“Oh, Baba, I have a mosquito bite!”

Shamol glanced out of the corner of his eye and suppressed a smile. “Don’t worry, mia, you won’t get elephantiasis.”

“How do you know, Baba?” Biren cried. He scratched the bite gingerly. It made the itch worse. His leg was also beginning to feel unusually heavy.

“Because elephantiasis is a rare disease. That is not to say it cannot happen to us. After all, it takes but a small misfortune, the size of a mosquito bite, to change someone’s life, doesn’t it? You must remember to be compassionate, mia, and to try to help others less fortunate than yourself.”

“Like poor Charudi, who lives under the banyan tree?”

“Yes, like Charudi. Remind me to buy some bananas for her at the market. We can stop by the temple and see her on our way home.”

* * *

While Father was getting the hilsa fish weighed and cleaned, Biren wandered over to the chicken man’s stall to check on his favorite rooster. Week after week, the black rooster never got sold. The chicken man said it was a special-occasion bird, too big and too expensive for most people to afford. Biren was secretly thankful, because he had grown rather attached to the rooster. He admired the bird as it strutted around its wire cage cocky and bright eyed. It had shiny blue-black feathers and a bright red comb and wattles—the exact same shade of vermillion his mother wore in the part of her hair.

But today the rooster’s cage was empty. In the next cage, six miserable hens with soiled feathers were crammed together looking half-dead.

“What happened to the black rooster?” Biren cried, pointing to the empty cage.

The chicken man made a chop-chop gesture with the edge of his palm. “Sold!” He waggled his toes and grinned widely with paan-stained teeth. “Goddess Laxmi smiled on me today. Tilok, the tea shop man, purchased the rooster to celebrate the birth of his twin boys.”

Biren’s eyes wandered over to the pile of shiny blue-black feathers and freshly gutted entrails cast to one side. A mangy pariah dog slunk around trying to take a lick. He suddenly felt nauseated.

“I have to go,” he said hastily, and ran back to his father.

* * *

Shamol flipped through his notebook. “I think we have everything,” he said. “Let me see—fish, vegetables, joss sticks, areca nut and betel leaves for your grandmother, soap nut and shikakai for your mother.” He looked up. “Is the flower man here? Oh, there he is. Let’s buy a fresh jasmine garland for your mother. She’ll like that.”

“And bananas for Charudi?” Biren reminded him.

“Oh, that’s right, bananas for Charudi,” said Shamol. “Also, there is something else I know I am forgetting.”

“Your umbrella, Baba,” Biren reminded him. He looked toward the umbrella man’s stall, but it was empty. “The man is not there.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Shamol, picking up his bags, “we’ll get the umbrella next week. Hopefully it won’t rain before then.”

* * *

They made their way out of the fish market and walked toward the temple. Shamol carried both jute bags to balance the weight on either side. Leafy mustard greens and bottle gourds protruded over the top of one. There was fish in the other. Biren walked beside him carrying a bunch of bananas and a large brown coconut.

Charudi—whose full name was Charulata—lived under the banyan tree by the river just outside the village temple. A hollow inside the banyan tree trunk served as her storage compartment. Here she kept a small brass pot and books wrapped in a red cotton towel. Charulata shared the tree with a family of monkeys. The monkeys seemed to have accepted her as one of their own because they never tampered with her belongings and left her in peace. They didn’t afford the same respect to the temple devotees, however. Monkeys ran off with slippers, snatched fruits out of hands, gnashed their teeth and made babies howl. The animals were a nuisance but enjoyed the sanctity of the temple, thanks to Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god.

As Shamol and Biren neared the temple, they saw Charulata sitting under the tree, gazing out at the river and fingering her prayer beads. She was a tiny bright-eyed woman who wore a piece of white cloth, darned and patched in several places, but clean. Her hair, cropped close to her head, was a snowy fizz. Destitute since her teenage years, Charulata had taught herself to read and write Sanskrit, a language far more difficult than Bengali.

“She is even more learned than the temple priest,” Shamol once remarked. He had great admiration for Charulata. “She has studied all the great scriptures but the poor woman can never enter the temple.”

“Why cannot she enter the temple?” asked Biren, puzzled.

“Because Charulata is a widow, mia, and Hindu widows are not allowed inside holy places. It is a cruel and meaningless custom of our society since ancient times. The poor woman is banned for no fault of her own. But Charulata does not need to go to any temple because she knows that God is hidden in every human soul.”

Charulata looked up and saw them. She motioned them over with a smile and lifted her hand to caress Biren’s cheek. The skin on her fingers was rough but her touch was tender.

“This boy gets more handsome every day,” she said softly.

Biren gave her the bananas.

“Bless you, dear child,” she said. “Wait, I also have something for you.” She turned around and, reaching inside the tree hollow, pulled out a flat object wrapped in newspaper. She handed it to Biren.

“What is it?” he asked curiously, setting the coconut down to accept it. He turned the packet over in his hands.

“A gift.” Charulata looked at him with shining eyes. “Open it and you will see. I made it specially for you.”

“How is your cough, Charulata?” Shamol asked, setting down his heavy bags. He took out a white handkerchief to mop his brow.

“Much better, much better,” chirped Charulata. “My nephew, you know the one in Dhaka Medical College, gave me a herbal tonic. But more important he gave me a book of the Brahma sutras. I don’t know if it was the book or the medicine that cured me.”

“Baba, look!” cried Biren. He held up a slim oblong-shaped palm bark with beautiful patterning in white. He turned to Charulata, incredulous. “Did you make this?” The paisley designs were painted with delicate strokes and closely woven together like the border of an embroidered sari.

“Why, yes.” Charulata laughed.

“But how?” asked Biren wonderingly. He fingered the bumpy pattern.

Charulata dismissed it with a wave. “Oh, it’s just a design painted with a duck feather, some rice flour and gum arabic. You can use it as a bookmark if you like. Do you like it, mia?”

“It’s beautiful,” said Biren reverentially. “Very, very beautiful. I will use this bookmark for my most important book.”

“Ah, that would be the Book of Life, mia. The one that’s written by the universe. My book is nearing its end but yours has just begun.”

Biren studied the design closely. “I can see a B entwined in the pattern. And here, another letter. Oh, I see my name!” He looked at his father with shining eyes. “Look, Baba, it’s my name hidden in the design. It’s like a puzzle.”

“Yes, I see that,” agreed Shamol. “That is indeed clever.”

“I paint these palm leaf designs with the names of different gods hidden in the pattern. The devotees like that. The priest sells them in the temple and he gives me two paisa for each. But more than the money, painting the patterns feels like a kind of meditation to me. Now I am thinking of doing some colored designs using vegetable dyes. Turmeric, indigo, vermillion.” She gave a mischievous laugh. “I may not be allowed to wear colors, but God gives me permission to paint in any hue I choose.”

“You are an inspiration to me, Charudi,” said Shamol. “They can take everything away from you but you still have all the essential things that feed the spirit and keep you joyful. I have much to learn from you.” He picked up his bags. “I could spend all day talking to you, but we must rush home before our fish spoils. Come, Biren, we must go.”

“Until next time, then,” said Charulata. “God bless you both and thank you for the bananas.”

“And thank you for the artistic gift,” Biren said, wrapping up the palm bark in the newspaper. “I will put it on my study desk and look at it every day.”

* * *

“I would keep it a secret,” said Shamol when they were out of earshot. “Don’t tell your grandmother Charudi gave you the bookmark. Otherwise, she will make you throw it away.”

Biren was indignant. “I will never throw it away. It is a special gift with my name written on it. Why should I throw it away?”

“Then, don’t tell Granny because she’ll say it’s bad luck to accept something from a widow’s hand. That is, of course, not at all true.”

They walked across the riverbed toward the bamboo grove and the road leading to the basha.

“Do you know it was Charudi who gave you your name?” said Shamol suddenly.

Biren stopped walking and looked at his father in surprise. “I thought it was Grandfather who named me Biren.”

“That is what we led your grandmother to believe.” Shamol chuckled. “Left to your grandmother you would have been named Bikramaditya. Your mother and I did not care for that name. Your mother, especially, was vehemently opposed to it so we had to do something. The Sanskrit letter associated with your lunar birth sign is B, so your name had to begin with B. We managed to convince your grandmother to name you Biren and we made Grandfather believe it was his idea. A child’s name dictates his fate in life after all. Nobody in our family, besides your mother and me, know it was actually Charudi who suggested your name. You are the third person now to know this but you must keep it a secret for the reasons I explained to you earlier.”

Biren absorbed this in silence. “My name means a soldier, does it not, Father?”

“Biren means warrior. There is a difference, mia. A soldier follows the orders of others. A warrior follows his own path. Sometimes a warrior has to act alone. You, Biren, are the Lord of Warriors. Never forget that.”

“And Nitin? What does Nitin mean?”

“Nitin means Master of the Right Path.”

“Did Charudi give Nitin his name, as well?”

“No, this time it really was your Grandfather’s suggestion, but your mother and I both liked the name Nitin, so it worked out all right.”

Biren skipped along and repeated softly, “Lord of Warriors and Master of the Right Path.” More loudly, he said, “I am glad I am the warrior, Baba. One day I will become a lawyer and I will fight for Charudi so she can enter the temple.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’s missing much,” said Shamol drily. “I am not even sure she cares to enter the temple. She has found what she needs under the banyan tree.”

“I will still fight for her. I think she wants me to. That is why she secretly wrote my name and pretended it was only a design.”

“Just keep it to yourself, mia. Do you know the wise sages believe there is a great power in secrecy? If you talk loosely about your intentions this power will disappear. But if you keep your good intentions a secret, the universe will conspire to make it happen. This is one of the great spiritual truths, mia. Wise people never talk about their intentions. They let their actions speak for them.”

CHAPTER

9

It was Shamol’s day off. He sat on the kitchen steps in his pajamas with Nitin half dozing on his lap, a cup of tea and a sugared toast beside him. Shamol watched Biren play marbles in the courtyard. His aim was excellent; he rarely missed. But as soon as one marble clicked against the other, a tiger-striped calico cat hiding behind the holy basil shot out to pounce on the marble, spoiling Biren’s game.

Biren stamped his foot. “Shoo!” he said sternly to the cat. He grabbed the marble out of its paws and placed it back on the spot where it had rolled. “The cat is not letting me play, Baba,” he complained to Shamol.

Shamol took a sip of his tea. “Perhaps he wants to play, too.”

“I want to play, too,” said Nitin, taking his thumb out of his mouth. He clambered off Shamol’s lap.

“Now you have two cats to play with you,” said Shamol, smiling.

Biren sighed.

“Aye, Khoka!” Granny called to Shamol from the kitchen window. Granny always called Father by his boyhood name every time she wanted something done. “Plant the marigold seedlings in the pots for me, will you? I want to grow the flowers for my puja.”

“Yes, Mother,” Shamol called back. “I am just finishing my tea.”

Biren glared indignantly at the retreating form of his grandmother. Khoka, do this, Khoka, do that. Never a moment of peace for poor Father. No time to even enjoy his cup of tea!

Shamol whistled a boatman’s song and went into the kitchen to return his cup. He must have said something funny because Mother replied with a laugh—the girlish laugh she reserved especially for him. His parents had their own little secrets, Biren suspected. Where did they run off to in the middle of the night? And why was there sand on their bed in the morning?

Shamol emerged from the kitchen. “Is anybody going to help me plant the marigolds?” he asked.

“I want to play with marbles,” said Nitin. “Dada, play marbles with me.”

“You play with the cat,” said Biren in an imperious voice.

“I don’t want to play with the cat,” Nitin pouted.

“Come along, then, wear your slippers,” said Shamol, heading toward the woodshed. The two boys ran to catch up with him.

Shamol dug up the rich black soil, Biren broke up the clumps and placed them in the terra-cotta pot and Nitin sat on his haunches and handed Biren the seedlings one by one.

“Careful, mia, you are pulling them up too roughly,” Shamol said. He took the seedling from Nitin’s hand and pointed to the roots. “See these small white hairs? If you break them, the plant will die. Use a stick and pull out the seedling very gently, like this, see?”

“Father, if you could be a tree—any tree in the world—what tree would you be?” Biren asked suddenly.

Shamol leaned on the worn-out handle of the shovel. “What tree would I like to be, now? What an interesting question. I will have to think about it.”

He went back to digging, then stopped. “I know what tree I want to be. I want to be a bamboo, although technically it is not a tree. It belongs to the grass family. Does that count?”

Biren frowned. “I suppose so.” He was disappointed in his father’s choice. He had expected him to pick something more significant like, say, a mango tree or a banyan, even a papaya tree. But bamboo? Father must be joking.

“But why bamboo, Father? It’s so...so ordinary.”

“Your father is an ordinary man, son. But why a bamboo, I will tell you. A bamboo is strong and resilient. It has many uses. You can build a house with it, you can make a raft and float down a river with it. You can eat it as a shoot, and drink out of it as a cup. Most important, the bamboo is hollow and empty inside. If a person can be hollow and empty like the bamboo, all the goodness and wisdom of the universe will flow through him.”

Biren was still not impressed. He did not want to be a bamboo. He saw himself as a magnificent and glorious flame tree, admired by all from near and far. He told his father that.

“The flame tree is an inspiring tree,” Shamol conceded. “It gives cooling shade and when it blooms it brings joy to all. But also know this. When the flame tree sheds, it loses everything. You see this in life, mia. Sometimes a person has to lose everything to renew and bloom again.”

Biren twirled a marigold seedling between his fingers. “Why is there only one flame tree, Baba? I have not seen any other flame trees around here.”

“Because it is an unusual tree for these parts. The natural habitat of the flame tree is in tiger country, hundreds of miles away.”

Shamol smiled at Nitin, who was frowning at the ground. “So what do you think, Nitin? What tree would you like to be? Dada wants to be a flame tree and I want to be a bamboo.”

“I...I...” Nitin faltered. He looked distressed, like he had been given a difficult piece of homework.

“Don’t worry,” Shamol said kindly. “You don’t have to be a tree. You can be anything you want.”

“I want to be an ant tree!” Nitin blurted out.

Shamol twitched his lips. “An ant tree!” he repeated. He leaned on his shovel and studied the round, earnest face of his younger son. “How marvelous! But tell me, mia, is it a tree where ants live or a tree that grows ants? I am curious to know.”

Nitin brightened. “An ant tree is a tree that grows ants and when...when...the ants get ripe they all fall down...and...when they all fall down they all play together and go to school!”

“Is that so?” Shamol’s eyes widened. “Be sure to warn me, mia, if you ever see an ant tree. I would be very much afraid to walk under one, with all the ripe ants falling on my head.”

Biren rolled his eyes at their silly talk. He tried to give Shamol a knowing look to say, Nitin is such a baby, but Shamol’s face was deadpan as he struck his shovel into the ground and continued to dig.

CHAPTER

10

The schoolmaster told Biren to see him in his office. When Biren stood in front of his desk, he handed the boy a folded note.

“Give this to your father,” he said, without looking up. “And don’t forget to bring back the answer tomorrow.”

Biren looked at the schoolmaster nervously. This was the first time he had written a note to his father—for that matter, to anybody’s father. Disciplinary measures were taken care of in school with no interference from parents, except, of course, in Samir’s case. Even that was most unusual. Most parents could not read or write anyway. Biren’s father, who had attended college in Dhaka, was the most educated man in the village, even more educated than the schoolmaster himself. To send Biren home with a handwritten note for his father and expect an answer the following day was all very odd. Biren wondered what the note was about.

“Did I do something wrong, Mastermoshai?” he said anxiously. “Please do not report me to my father.”

The weasel-faced schoolmaster looked mildly amused. “Why, mia? Do you have something to confess?”

Biren shook his head. He looked so worried the schoolmaster felt sorry for him.

“This is another matter,” he said shortly. “It has nothing to do with you. Run along now and remember to bring back the answer from your father tomorrow. This is urgent.”

* * *

Biren hopped from one foot to the other as he waited for Father to come home. He desperately wanted to go and meet his boat at the riverbank, but it was too far for Nitin to walk, so Biren had to be content to wait at their usual place down the road. Father was running late. Biren walked up and down while Nitin squatted by the side of the road and pushed ants around with a stick.

“One ant has died, Dada,” Nitin lamented with a woebegone face. “Shall we bury it?” Biren ignored him and gave a small shout when he saw his father turn the corner of the bamboo grove. Now he could see why his father was running late. Shamol held a big bunch of pink and white lilies, the stems wrapped in the pages of an old ledger and tied with a piece of jute string.