Lost World

It has been two months since the cyclone Amphan has wreaked havoc on Kolkata. Life has returned to 'normal'. But something has not been the same for me anymore.

The window of our kitchen opens to our neighbour's backyard. Their tiny, single storey house occupies only the front half of their plot. The rest is forest.

The old, dilapidated house, freckled with saplings peeking out of cracks, perches on a nest of wild undergrowth. Here and there, plaster peels off the walls, revealing decrepit bricks. The house had never been painted. But years of accumulated algae has tinged the walls with a shade of verdigris. A tree has grown along the wall near their back door. The branches spill over the door and knit along its edges - a tree-framed door straight out of a horror story. 

As a child, I had been convinced that this house was haunted. I had even gone on to conjure stories of ghosts partying there every night. It was a bewildering experience, the first time I encountered our neighbours. They were not ghosts, of course. But the image of a withered old woman framed in a cobwebbed window, had been enough to strike fear into my five year old heart. 

For as long as I can remember, the tiny jungle behind the house, has been a constant source of fascination for me. At the centre of the backyard is a giant neem tree, its canopy sprawling over half the area. Beside it, stands a papaya tree, a sickly jackfruit tree, and some other big and small ones. Above them, the fringed head of a coconut tree peeps out of the cluster of leaves and branches. A thick carpet of wild shrubs and grass shrouds the ground beneath. From high up, the backyard is easily visible - a small patch of green in a concrete forest.  

The window of my old bedroom opened to the backyard. But being on the ground floor, all that I could see were the tangle of bushes, and the trunks of the taller residents. When it rained, at night, I would lie awake for hours, gazing at the darkness outside my window, as raindrops pattered on the roof and the ground. And I would be imagine myself inside a tent in a rainforest. Later, when it stopped raining, I would fall asleep, snug in the cool air, listening to the soft tapping of the rain, dripping from the leaves onto the ground. In the mornings after, thin strands of sunlight would find their way through the canopy, faintly lighting the lower layers. As the mist hung like gossamer on the glistening leaves, the backyard would look like an enchanted forest in a fairy-tale.

 

As I grew up, the trees grew in numbers, fighting to make a room of their own in their little-green-patch world. The mighty neem tree bent and twirled and turned up at my grandparent's bedroom window. For years now, diabetes has given them little trouble.

A variety of birds and insects had found their home in this unkempt, neglected backyard. Now and then, we would find a rufous treepie flitting across the leaves, or a squirrel running to and fro on a branch. Stray cats and dogs would often foray into the backyard in search of food. Throughout the day, birds and insects would liven up the foliage with their gamut of notes. Parrots, spotted doves, and woodpeckers were among the backyard's regular visitors.

During the rains, the backyard would become a temporary residence to an assortment of insects, as they would soon find their way across the parapet wall and into our house. One monsoon, the madhabilata creepers were full of caterpillars, and before long, so was our house. Every now and then, we would see a fuzzy black caterpillar wriggling up a wall. We had a hard time keeping them out of our beds and bathrooms. Then, the rains went away, and the caterpillars followed.

We had been warned of the cyclone - it had been all over the news. But every time a cyclone had risen from the Bay of Bengal, it had changed its course. So we went on with our daily activities, remaining unconcerned. And none of us were prepared for what was to come. 

It started with a few dark clouds and a drizzle, the way all storms do. And before we knew, wind was howling between the trees and rain poured down in torrents, splattering on the window panes, threatening to break in. Below the balcony door, water seeped in forming puddles. And then, darkness...

We lit the only candle we had, and sat huddled up in a room. The tempest raged on outside. Thunder rumbled and lit up the rooms in bouts. Window panes shattered. In the backyard, the trees creaked and groaned in the wind. But in the darkness, we could see little of the damage. 

We had lost the network on our phones during the storm. So we had had no idea of the extent of destruction that had taken place the night before. The eye of the storm had passed right through the city, leaving in its wake, a tortured wreck. We were some of the fortunate ones, with little damage to property and our electricity having been restored within a few hours. In some parts of the city, it had taken days.

Through the kitchen window, we could see the fallen neem tree. All the trees had been uprooted and lied in a tangled mess. Above them, hung a wistful void of an airspace. 

People were sent from the Corporation to clear away the fallen trees, as in so many other parts of the city. They took away the all the trees except the neem, which had somehow not been fully uprooted. But they had cut off its branches, that had been blocking our windows and main entrance. 

Now, the neem tree lies supported on the house, mourning for its amputated arms as its gnarled roots stretch and strain to hold on to the earth. The rest of the backyard is empty. Only the undergrowth remains. Soon, the neem tree too would be taken away, and the green carpet would be cleared, leaving behind the ghost of a back yard that had been. And some time later, an apartment building would take its place.

As I sit writing, from my vantage point at a corner of my balcony, I see a woodpecker on a pole. Most of the houses here have poles on the terraces, jutting out towards the sky. Thin plastic ropes run between these poles, bore down by clothes when the sun is higher up. But now they are at ease, swaying in the breeze as the woodpecker hammers on. Now, it flies away to another pole peeking out of a building farther up - a tiny silhouette against the vast golden pink of the sky. In a while, blue would bleed into the sky until the last vestiges of pink disappear, and the bird would soar away somewhere far off. For, woodpeckers need trees, and here, there are none.

A visitor to our window a week after the storm

"Earthquake, tidal wave, hurricane, flood, blizzard, all come to remind us that we are not, after all, the masters of the universe. We might trample upon our natural heritage, and do our best to destroy it, but the forces of nature are greater than man's. Nature will always have the last word."  

 - Ruskin Bond