Pratap Reddy

 
Soon we tire of the sport and go back into the house. Mithuna finds herself a detective novel in our late grandfather’s old collection, reeking of must and bygone years. Not finding any writers of my choice, I settle for PG Wodehouse, Daddy’s favourite author.

Dear tree, once you too had been
unwanted, unloved, and barren
But now-
The pride of your mistress’s life,
Her triumph, her treasure.
So bountiful, so fecund,
Inviting the evil eye of passersby

We spend the evening pottering about in the unkempt front garden. Auntie’s examining the wild shrubs as if she’s a botanist. Nirmala’s plucking flowers for the evening pooja.

“How lovely Kumuda’s lime tree looks!” Auntie says, gazing up at the tree.
“Doesn’t it? Kumudamma is so proud of it,” says Nirmala.
“What fascinates me is that it had looked so…so undernourished last year. But look at it now…it’s laden with fruit!”
“The tantrik’s cure did the trick I suppose.”
“What did he recommend?” asks Auntie, all ears.
“You won’t believe this. … He told her to bury a dead animal under the tree.”
“What! But where in the world did Kumuda find a dead animal?” asks Auntie.
“Well, Kumudamma asked Venkatesh, her servant-boy to help her. As he couldn’t find one readily, he killed a small dog he found roaming on the hillside, I believe.”

I curse inwardly, as I hear Auntie say: “Dear me, what kind of a dog was it?”

“A small fluffy dog, I was told.”

Nirmala goes into the house with her flower basket overflowing with jasmines, completely oblivious to the stink she has left behind. Mithuna starts wailing: “My dog! My poor dog! That horrible woman had my Whimsy murdered.”

Mithuna begins to run, heading for Komodo Dragon’s house. I hurry after her and physically restrain her.

“Lemme go! Lemme go!” Mithuna’s screaming all the while. I’ve a hard time trying to control her.
“Mithuna, why are you shouting?” asks Grandma, suddenly appearing in the veranda as though the commotion has flushed her out of the house.

“Nirmala said that Komodo Dragon got my Whimsy killed!”
“What nonsense!”
“A tantrik told her to bury a dead animal under the lime tree. I want to know if it was my Whimsy.”
“But it’s late in the evening now,” says Grandma. Komodo Dragon’s front door is shut, battened down for the night. “I’ll talk to her in the morning if you like.”
“Your grandmother’s right,” says Auntie. “Let’s not do anything rash.”
“Let Grandma handle it,” I tell Mithuna. “We are just visitors here. Grandma has to live with her neighbours every day.”

Dinnertime is sombre and silent, and grandmother wisely doesn’t serve Komodo Dragon’s lime pickle despite Auntie eyeing the jar, which stands in a niche. Mithuna eats poorly as usual, but nobody has the heart, or the energy, to nag her. She’s quiet, but it’s not the quietude that comes from resignation; it’s as if she’s waiting, treading water until the epic confrontation with Komodo Dragon.

When Mithuna has left the room, Auntie says as she’s clearing the dinner things: “It was such a barbaric act. How could Kumuda do it?”

“Being a city dweller,” says Grandma with a pinch of contempt in her voice, “you may not be familiar with the ways of people in small towns. Burying a carcass under a tree is not so uncommon. It’s supposed to act as a natural fertilizer. That it was our pet dog is another matter.”

The night is restive, like the proverbial lull before storm, and we go to bed early. But around midnight I wake up with a start, not knowing what had roused me. Moonlight filters in obliquely, showing up some furniture, hiding others. Then I hear them, the spasmodic thwacks of a woodcutter. Who would want to chop kindling for the bathroom urn so late in the night?

Then I realize that the sounds are not coming from the back of the house. I rush to the front door; it’s unlocked, rattling against the jamb in the wind. When I go out, I see Mithuna’s silhouette in the eerie moonlight. She’s determinedly hacking at our neighbour’s lime tree.

A miscreant intent on violence
has unleashed such havoc,
that in one fell swoop
has reduced a legend to dust

Before I could call out to Mithuna, the scene is ablaze with light: the verandah lamp of Komodo Dragon’s house has burst into life. The front door opens, and Komodo Dragon dashes out shrieking, “What are you doing?! What are you doing?!”

“Doing the same thing you did to my Whimsy. What harm had that sweet little dog done to you?”

“What are you talking about? I know nothing about your dog. You’ve killed my tree. I had nursed it back to health as if it were my child. Now I have nothing…nothing.”

“The dog you buried under the tree was like a child to me,” says Mithuna.

“I had nothing to do with it. I had entrusted Venkatesh to do the job. I don’t even know what he put under the tree.”

Komodo Dragon bursts into tears. The ground’s littered with fruit, and the tree’s doubled down, as if bowing its head in shame.

“Why did you have to do such a thing?” I say, leading Mithuna back to the house. “Grandma would have spoken to her.”

“Would that have brought my Whimsy back? Would they have thrown Komodo Dragon into a prison?”

“If I were you, I’d have let grown-ups handle it.”

“You’re not me, my dearest twin. I’ve realized long ago that you can’t rely on others to fight your battles. You’ll have to do it yourself.”

Grieve not, lime tree
The scythe of the Reaper
Awaits us all
Death’s not the end,
Just a momentary hiatus:
The seed from your fruit will flower yet again.

The next morning, I wake up with a feeling of dread. But by that time the adults have hijacked our world.

“Get ready quickly,” Auntie says. “The taxi will be coming at nine o’clock. We’ll eat an early breakfast and leave.”
“Where are we going?” I say.
“We are returning to Hyderabad. I spoke to your father. He wanted us to come back immediately.”

We have a hastily cooked breakfast made with semolina. When I hear the peremptory pom! pom!, I take the suitcases down to the taxi and load them into the shabby trunk smelling of petrol and god knows what. Grandma comes up to the car. She looks haggard as if she has aged a good many years since last night.

“Do well at school,” Grandma says to us. “Forget about what happened yesterday. You’ve your entire lives ahead of you.”

The taxi makes a three-point turn and rumbles down the road, bouncing over the ruts. Waving for the last time, I look back at Grandma. And in our neighbour’s garden, there’s a barren spot where the lime tree had once so proudly stood, a glowing totem for its mistress.

That happened a few years ago. People say that going back home is the best part of a journey. But it’s not always so, believe me. We were nervous not knowing what our parents’ reaction would be. When we got home, Daddy, assuming a stern voice, told us never to take law into our own hands. Mummy interjected with the comment that an eye for an eye was not a solution to the world’s problems. In the end, for all the stress Mithuna went through, Daddy bought her another pup—a golden retriever. Mithuna named him ‘Whisky.

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