THE CHERRY TREE (Ruskin Bond)
One day, when Rakesh was six, he walked from the Mussoorie
bazaar eating cherries. They were a little sweet, a little sour; small, bright
red cherries, which had come all the way from the Kashmir valley.
Here in the Himalayan foothills where Rakesh lived, there
were not many fruit trees. The soil was stony, and the dry cold winds stunted
the growth of most plants. But on the more sheltered slopes there were forests
of oak and deodar.
Rakesh lived with his grandfather on the outskirts of Mussoorie,
just where the forest began.
Grandfather was a retired forest ranger. He had a little
cottage out side the town.
Rakesh was on his way home from school when he bought the
cherries. He paid fifty paisa for the bunch. It took him about half an hour to
walk home, and by the time he reached the cottage there were only three
cherries left.
‘Have a cherry, grandfather,’ he said, as soon as he saw
grandfather in the garden.
Grand father took one cherry and Rakesh promptly ate the
other two. He kept the last seed in his mouth for some time, rolling it round
and round on his tongue until all the tang had gone. Then he placed the seed on
the palm of his hand and studied it.
‘Are cherry seeds lucky?’ asked Rakesh.
‘Of course.’
‘Nothing is lucky if you put it away. If you want luck, you
must put it to some use.’
‘What can I do with a seed?’
‘Plant it.’
So Rakesh found a small spade and began to dig up a
flower-bed.
‘Hey, not there,’ said grandfather. ‘I’ve sown mustard in
that bed. Plant it in that shady corner, where it won’t be disturbed.’
Rakesh went to a corner of the garden where the earth was
soft and yielding. He did not have to dig. He pressed the seed into the soil
with his thumb and it went right in.
Then he had his lunch, and ran off to play cricket with his
friends, and forgot all about the cherry seed.
When it was winter in the hills, a cold wind blew down from
the snows and went whoo-whoo-whoo in
the deodar trees, and the garden was dry and bare. In the evenings grandfather and
rakesh sat over a charcoal fire, and grandfather told rakesh stories – stories
about people who turned into animals, and ghosts who lived in trees, and beans
that jumped and stones that wept – and in turn rakesh would read to him from
the news paper, Grandfather’s eyesight being rather weak. Rakesh found the news
paper very dull – especially after the stories – but grand father wanted all
the news…
They knew it was spring when the wild duck flew north again,
to Siberia. Early in the morning, when he got up to chop wood and light a fire,
rakesh saw the V shaped formation streaming northwards and heard the calls of
birds clearly through the thin mountain air.
One morning in the garden he bent to pick up what he thought
was a small twig and found to his surprise that it was well rooted. He stared
at it for a moment, then ran to fetch grandfather, calling, ‘Dada, come and
look, the cherry tree has come up!’
‘What cherry tree?’ Asked grandfather, who had forgotten
about it.
‘The seed we planted last year – look, it’s come up!’
Rakesh went down on his haunches, while Grandfather bent
almost double and peered down at the tiny tree. It was about four inches high.
‘Yes, it’s a cherry tree,’ said grandfather. ‘You should
water it now and then.’
Rakesh ran indoors and came back with a bucket of water.
‘Don’t drown it!’ said grandfather.
Rakesh gave it a sprinkling and circled it with pebbles.
’what are the pebbles for?’ asked grandfather.
‘For privacy,’ said rakesh.
He looked at the tree every morning but it did not seem to
be growing very fast. So he stopped looking at it – except quickly, out of the
corner of his eye. And, after a week or two, when he allowed himself to look at
it properly, he found that it had grown – at least an inch!
That year the monsoon rains came early and rakesh plodded to
and from school in rain coat and gum boots. Ferns sprang from the trunks of
trees, strange looking lilies came up in the long grass, and even when it
wasn’t raining the trees dripped and mist came curling up the valley. The cherry
tree grew quickly in this season.
It was about two feet high when a goat entered the garden
and ate all the leaves. Only the main stem and two thin branches remained.
‘Never mind,’ said grandfather, seeing that rakesh was
upset. ‘It will grow again: cherry trees are tough.’
Towards the end of the rainy season new leaves appeared on
the tree. Then a woman cutting the grass cut the cherry in two.
When grandfather saw what had happened, he went after the
woman and scolded her; but the damage could not be repaired.
‘May be it will die now,’ said rakesh.
‘May be,’ said grandfather.
But the cherry tree had no intention of dying.
By the time summer came round again, it had sent several new
shoots with tender green leaves. Rakesh had grown taller too. He was eight now,
a sturdy boy with curly black hair and deep black eyes. ‘Blackberry,’
grandfather called them.
That monsoon Rakesh went home to his village, to help his
father and mother with the planting and ploughing and sowing. He was thinner
but stronger when he came back to his grandfather’s house at the end of rains,
to find that cherry tree had grown another foot. It was now up to his chest.
Even when there was rain, Rakesh would sometimes water the
tree. He wanted it to know that he was there.
One day he found a bright green praying mantis perched on a
branch, peering at him with bulging eyes. Rakesh let it remain there. It was
the cherry tree’s first visitor.
The next visitor was a hairy caterpillar, who started making
a meal of the leaves. Rakesh removed it quickly and dropped it on a heap of dry
leaves.
‘Come back when you are a butterfly,’ he said.
Winter came early. The cherry tree bent low with the weight
of snow. Field mice sought shelter in the roof of the cottage. The road from
the valley was blocked, and for several days there was no newspaper, and this
made grandfather quite grumpy. His stories began to have unhappy endings.
In February it was Rakesh’s birthday. He was nine – and the
tree was four, but almost as tall as Rakesh.
One morning, when the sun came out, Grandfather came into
the garden. ‘Let some warmth get into my bones,’ he said. He stopped in front
of the cherry tree, stared at it for a few moments, and then called out,
‘Rakesh! Come and look! Come quickly before it falls!’
Rakesh and grandfather gazed at the tree as though it had
performed a miracle. There was a pale pink blossom at the end of a branch.
The following year there were more blossoms. And suddenly
the tree was taller than Rakesh, even though it was less than half his age. And
then it was taller than grandfather, who was older than some of the oak trees.
But Rakesh had grown too. He could run and jump and climb
trees as well as most boys, and he read a lot of books, although he still liked
listening grandfather’s tales.
In the cherry tree, bees came to feed on the nectar in the
blossoms, and tiny birds pecked at the blossoms and broke them off. But the
tree kept blossoming right through the spring, and there were always more
blossoms than birds.
That summer there were small cherries on the tree. Rakesh
tasted one and spat it out.
‘It’s too sour,’ he said.
‘They‘ll be better next year,’ said grandfather.
But the birds liked them – especially the bigger birds, such
as the bulbuls and scarlet minivets – and they flitted in and out of the
foliage, feasting on the cherries.
On a warm sunny afternoon, when even the bees looked sleepy,
Rakesh was looking for grandfather without finding him in any of his favorite
places around the house. Then he looked out of the bed room window and saw
grandfather reclining on a cane chair under the cherry tree.
‘There is just the right amount of shade here,’ said
grandfather. ‘And I like looking at the leaves.’
‘They’re pretty leaves,’ said Rakesh. ‘And they are always
ready to dance, if there’s breeze.’
After grandfather had come indoors, Rakesh went into the
garden and lay down on the grass beneath the tree. He gazed up through the
leaves at the great blue sky; and turning on his side, he could see the
mountain striding away into the clouds. He was still lying beneath the tree
when the evening shadows crept across the garden. Grandfather came back and sat
down beside the Rakesh, and they waited in silence until it was dark.
‘There are so many trees in the forest,’ said Rakesh.
‘What’s so special about this tree? Why do we like it so much?’
‘We planted it ourselves,’ said grandfather. ‘That’s why
it’s special.’
‘Just one small seed,’ said Rakesh, and he touched the
smooth bark of the tree that had grown. He ran his hand along the trunk of the
tree and put his finger to the tip of a leaf. ‘I wonder,’ he whispered. ‘Is this what it feels to be God?’
