Bolai – A short story by Rabindranath Tagore
Every day I notice this tree to look like a fool. No respect or regard to anyone, just amidst the pathway growing upwards like a shameless one! Couple of times proposed its death penalty! Tried to allure Bolai distracting from that one, told him that we could plant a few beautiful flowering rose plants instead!
Told him, “Or, else you love the Shimul plant only, we will get you another sapling and get that planted beside the fences of the garden!”
But the proposal for uprooting that plant scares him so much and his aunty pleads for him, “Why are you after this? It’s not looking that bad anyway!”
Boli lost his mother, my sister in law, when he was just an infant. Probably shocked by his wife’s untimely demise my elder brother left for London to study engineering. The kid grew up in our childless family in his aunty’s love and care. After about a decade my elder brother returned and took his son to Simla, with a plan to educate him in England after a couple of years.
Deserting our home, Bolai left for his destiny in tears, leaving behind only the memories for his aunty.
Couple of years passes by. In the meanwhile, Bolai’s aunty wipes her tears in silo, and stares at his worn out pair of sandals, his dilapidated rubber ball, and flips through the pages of the picture books with animals and birds; probably thinks that her Bolai has grown up so much now leaving behind all these earmarks in the far past.
Once I just noticed that the very Shimul plant has grown up in such an inappropriate way, that it can’t be spared any more. Just got that ripped off.
At such times Bolai send a letter to his aunty, “Could you please send me a photograph of my Shimul plant here?”
He was supposed to visit us once before the final departure for England. That seems to be cancelled now. So Bolai just wanted to carry the photograph of his childhood friend.
His aunty called me, “Honey, could you please arrange for a photographer sson?”
I just asked, “Why?”
She handed me over the letter written in his own handwriting.
I replied, “That tree has been ripped off already!”
Bolai’s aunty did not touch the food, neither water for two days, and after that didn’t utter a single word to me for a long time. Bolai’s dad took him off from her, that broke her pulse, and his uncle removed his most beloved trees for ever, that actually created an irreparable wound in her heart, lost all the meaning of all the things on earth, forever.
That tree was a live representation of her Bolai, his loving friend, closest to his heart!
I have this video of the story being read out. While you are on the video, please Subscribe to our ExploreIndiaTV Youtube Channel & let me know your thoughts.
