his wife and seven-year-old daughter joined him beside his mobile ironing cart. His daughter delivered bundles of ironed clothes to homes along the the street and collected money for her father. My mom, being the loving woman she is, used to give the girl some fruit, biscuits or other munchies. One day the girl came running to Mom crying “Aunty, I work so hard and collect all this money for my father, but he is refusing to buy me color pencils for Rs.10 (19 cents)”! And so Mom went as negotiator to Ramanna and they settled on splitting the cost down the middle. Little Chinty was full of smiles that day. On another occasion Mom walked home with loaded grocery bags and there was Ramanna sitting on the front porch with a bundle of clothes. “Ma’am, the lady across the street is out. When she comes back can you please give her these clothes?” he pleaded. And so Mom spent the evening on the front room sofa with a bundle of colorful clothes, eyes peeled on the neighbor’s gate. And then, almost inevitably, the lady down the street knocked on the door. “Aunty, I need to get these clothes ironed in a hurry, but the dhobi is not here yet. I need to go to the temple, can you please give him these clothes when he gets here?” she requested. “Of course!” said Mom and went back to chopping vegetables wondering aloud about when she had signed up to unofficially manage Ramanna’s dhobi business. Lethargic after a sumptuous lunch, Mom was relaxing with a book in the front veranda one afternoon, when snap, snap, she heard breaking noises. Walking outside, she found a man on the Neem tree breaking small branches and twigs and hurtling it to the ground. An unfamiliar rage colored Mom’s voice. “Hey you! why are you breaking the branches?” she yelled. “Oh be quiet Ma’am! they will grow back out! Kids in my village are down with chicken pox, so I am taking some leaves!” he replied. Mom watched him walk away with a third of her tree. The plot of land across the street was sold to a new owner who started constructing his house. It did not take long for the construction workers to discover the neem tree and its cool shade. Soon the land around the tree became preferred parking for all their bicycles, motorcycles and cars. It also became the favorite lunch spot for all the workers. They gathered there every afternoon with their packed lunch. Stories of household sorrows and joys, mobile phone conversations, cricket commentary on the radio, minor rough-ups with loan sharks all broke the monotony in front of my parents house.
On the day that sounds of “Kolaveri Kolaveri Di” disturbed the cherished afternoon nap in the cool shade of the neem tree in their bedroom, my parents decided to shift to the guest bedroom at the back of the house. One morning at about 11:00 a.m. Mom heard some loud altercations. Cautiously she peered out from behind the curtain to find several “muscle men” standing under the neem tree, smoking cigarettes! Mom quietly stole to the backyard to ask the maid what was going on. “There is some dispute regarding the road due to the new house construction, so these are local hooligans from the village. You stay indoors!” she advised. The next day Mom walked out hearing sirens to see a police jeep parked under the tree! Yesterday it was hooligans, today it’s law enforcement, she sighed. And all day she got inquiries from neighbors about why the police had visited her house! Soon the local college boys discovered the neem tree. Very soon there were throngs of boys on their motor bikes hanging out in the evenings under the tree, smoking cigarettes and gossiping about cricket, professors and, of course, girls, who joined in every now and then. News of the new young world wafted into my parents’ living room in the evenings providing ample entertainment. Which was just as well, since moving all the vehicles blocking the gate to take the car out and go for an evening drive was becoming more and more tiresome. My parents had to solicit passers-by to help move vehicles when they needed to take the car out. Just as Mom was starting to pull out her hair over the tree, my aunt visiting from Chennai dropped a conversational bomb about the root damage neem trees could cause to the building structure and the amount of money needed to fix it. For the first time the thought of chopping the tree down entered my mom’s mind. One day Mom was sitting in the front porch reading a book and slowly she looked up at the tree. It was spring and the tree was full of fragrant blossoms. She took a deep breath and relaxed, enjoying its shade, beauty and fragrance. The branches swayed to a gentle breeze and seemed to smilingly say “I am the one providing the shade and I don’t mind all the drama. Why are you worrying?” And just like that Mom realized her “neem baby” was all grown up now. It was alive, it was well, and it was fulfilling its promise in the world. n Samanvitha Rao is a Technical Marketing Engineer based in San Jose. She is an avid adventure enthusiast. This article was inspired by her mother, Leelavathi Rao’s story, published in the Kannada magazine Sudha.
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