Expectation and the Event
(Tamil Short Story, 1913- Translated
)
There was once a casuarina tree in a
forest. It was thriving comfortably, lush and green, with enough rain and
sunshine. Children sang and played joyously under its shade; birds nested in
its branches and cooed melodiously. Squirrels jumped so playfully on its
branches that merely watching them evoked a feeling of briskness. Even though
every creature that benefited from the tree was lively and contented, the tree
itself was never satisfied.
It always felt that it could be
something else. It wanted to be put to use for something famous in the world.
Knowing this, a tree beside it said, ‘Good, one day you will become the mast
for a ship. What could be more special than that?’ But the tree didn’t like it:
‘Pooh! What, did you say the mast for a ship! I would like to be more special
than that, thank you very much!’ Every year, the men who measured trees would
mark out the tall ones in the forest; the woodcutters would —then arrive, fell
the trees, chop up the branches and deliver them to the shipbuilders.
The tree thought all this was —too
demeaning. One day the tree was marked to be cut. ‘Aha, the time has come for
you too, is it?’ remarked a nearby tree. But the tree laughed it off. ‘I’m much
smarter than them.’ It got the mark rubbed off with a squirrel’s tail.
The weaver birds who came back the
following year exclaimed, ‘O! You’re still here!’ The tree replied haughtily,
‘O, yes, they tried to chop me off. But you think I’ll give in to them?’ ‘But
don’t you want to be tied to a mast of a pretty ship, travel the seas in style
and see new-new ports and people?’ asked a weaver bird. ‘No, I’m not at all
interested,’ said the tree. ‘The sea looks the same everywhere. I want to be of
use to the world, that’s my aim.’ ‘You are talking senselessly. We have no time
to chat with you now,’ said the birds and went about their work.
The time came for the tree’s wish to
be fulfilled. One day, a few other woodcutters came to the forest. Instead of
picking the tallest and the most upright trees, they earmarked trees at random
and started cutting them down. The weaver birds remarked to their old friend,
‘Be careful. Whether you like it or not, these people are sure to chop you
today.’ ‘I quite like the idea,’ replied the tree. ‘I wish to be of use to the
world.’ On hearing this, a woodcutter said, ‘Good, as you wish.’ With a chop of
his axe, he pulled it down. ‘I don’t think you will work as a ship’s mast.
Don’t worry, you aren’t suitable enough to be put for such use. They will use
you to make paper.’
‘What is paper? ’ asked the tree to
the weaver birds who were flying here and there on its branches. ‘We don’t
know. We’ll ask the sparrows.’ The sparrows said what they knew: ‘Paper is the
white thing on which people write and read. Earlier they were making it with
rags. Nowadays because trees are so easily available, they are making it with
trees.’
‘O, people will read me, is it?’
enquired the tree eagerly. ‘Yes,’ they replied. The tree lay spellbound, its
happiness knowing no bounds. Aware that there was little reason to be so
joyful, the sparrows cautioned: ‘Ayyo, wait a minute. They are going to turn
you into newsprint, not paper for —a book.’ ‘Whatever it is, they will write
only interesting, good things on me, isn’t it?’ said the tree. ‘Perhaps,’ said
the sparrows. ‘But, generally, they don’t always write good things.’
A few men then came to drag away the
tree. Poor thing, the tree went through such ordeals. First they chopped it
into bits, then pushed it into the grinding machine along with the others,
pounded and squeezed all the juice out of its body to make it into mush,
torturing it in ever so many ways, before finally turning it into paper. What
was the point in having such thoughts while undergoing such torment? And what
use thinking of days of pleasant sunshine in the sloping hills of the forest,
when birds cooed in the branches and children scampered about in the shade and
when you proudly watched them all? ‘I never imagined the world would be like
this,’ mused the tree aloud. The other trees, also turned into paper, concurred
in one voice: ‘Whatever has been said of the world is all highly exaggerated.’
Then they wound the tree into a roll,
five miles long, and loaded it into a ship. There, poor thing, it suffered from
ailments such as seasickness for a week. A fierce wind blew over its head. When
they heard the noise, all the trees that were turned into paper sighed about
the days spent so pleasantly in the forest, when they had so fearlessly braved
the winds.
Our casuarina tree (turned into paper)
had the misfortune to be piled at the bottom of the mast of the ship. Not only
that, the mast also happened to be its old friend. The mast told the tree with
satisfaction and pride: ‘There is no greater life than being a mast. Under the
sunshine during the day and under the stars and the moon at night, we take
people and goods to new-new countries, see so many ports – I can’t tell you how
much use we are to the world.’ The tree started to cry. ‘Are you telling me
that a mast is as important as a newspaper?’
The mast shook with laughter. ‘Well,
this is what I like. Why, the life of a newspaper is just one single day; it’s
of no use at all even the very next day. A mast, on the other hand, is of use
for several years. O, I forgot another thing. Sometimes the captain of the ship
leans against it. Just imagine how proud it feels.’ The tree was engulfed in
immeasurable sorrow.
On reaching the port, the rolls of
paper were unloaded on the shore. In the end, it reached the go down of the
city’s newspaper. It would have been so breezy in the forest; it was so
different being shut inside the airless go down. Every roll of paper that lay
in the room lamented with great sorrow.
One night, our tree (the paper) was
taken to the printing place, where under the press, unable to breathe, it lost
consciousness. When it came to in the morning, it found letters imprinted on
its body. What the sparrows had said had come true. What was printed on it were
advertisements with crude illustrations – ‘Fragrant snuff’, ‘Sparrow virility
potion’, ‘Hypnotic aromatic tobacco’, ‘Sixteen expensive things for a rupee’,
‘Novel hair remover’, and things such as ‘Broad-daylight Murder in Chinglepet’,
‘Man Dies Climbing Tree’, ‘Trains Collide’, ‘Yogi Living on Air’, ‘Flying
Baby’, etcetera. There was not a single thought-provoking word to be seen. Oh!
Even the all-knowing Lord of the Serpents, Adhiseshan himself wouldn’t be able
to express how sad the tree was when it came to know what was printed on it; it
bemoaned the fact that it hadn’t become a mast. It took a vow that if only it
could somehow escape from this predicament, it would never let its mind wander.
But ayyo, it was all over.
Then the tree and others like it were
cut up, folded, and bundled off in the early-morning cold to be sold in the
railway station. A man bought it for half an Anna, read the entire contents,
announced that there was nothing worthwhile in it, and flung it under his seat.
Another man picked it up, read it, and on the way back home when he bought some
fish, he wrapped them in it. Stinking of fish, it spent the entire night
thinking about life in the forest.
The next day, when the stove didn’t
light up, the maid flung the fish wrapping into the fire. In a minute it was
burnt – ‘busss…’ Forgetting that it was a story that they read, the students
pondered on both the joys that the tree could have experienced and the turmoil
it was subjected to in reality.
The teacher who was considered a great
enemy and nicknamed ‘Teacher Never-to-Die’ asked: ‘What is the moral of the
story?’ ‘Man proposes, god disposes’, or ‘you can’t beat fate’ or some such
grandiloquent philosophical statements were what he expected from the children.
But one boy, whose mind was still on
the story, uttered: ‘The moral is, these wretched newspapers should be banned!’
Taken aback by the unusual response, the teacher didn’t know what to say. Just
because he was a young boy, we shouldn’t presume that he answered in jest.
Moreover, we elders are tortured daily by many such newspapers which give us
error-ridden information, poorly printed on shabby, dirty paper, yielding
nothing in return for the effort we put in. Shouldn’t we then endorse this
view?
-Ammanai Ammal ,
Original
title: (Tamil) Sankalpamum Sambavamum 1913,
From : The Tamil Story: Through the Times, Through the Tides, E book 2006
