I lived on the third floor. My room was spacious and had a tiny balcony attached to it. In the morning, after getting ready for school, I used to go and have my cup of milk in the balcony admiring the city without any human interference at 5:45 AM exact.
There were three small building in the front, and then there was road. A tree grew among three of them. It seemed old. It looked as if it was proud and glad to see the 21st century unlike many of its friends which might have stood there at some point of time with it. But then at the same time, it looked upset at having being saved from the planters of concrete forest. There was no one to look after him and was extremely bored. We could say by how its leaves were losing their shine every passing day.
The tree however had some companions. There were many creepers crawling on it. For them, the tree was the only support. If they would have tried to climb up the buildings, the people would have cut them down. After all, they don’t understand the true value of natural beauty. There were many tiny plants growing beside it. It was clear by the way they looked up at him that they wanted to be like him someday, proud and wise.
There were other companions that were a matter of amusement for me as well. They were squirrels. They were four of them, but I’m not sure if they were a family. They lived on that tree. They were the perfect notion of ecstasy.
They ran around each other, and spoke to each other in a language that I could never understand. After studying so much, getting so much of knowledge, I felt it was all worthless when I could not understand the language of my own brothers; after all they were the creations of the same almighty. At times, they would look at each other as if trying to say something and then the other one would even understand. Their bond of communication was even stronger than ours. Even if we had so many communication techniques, we could never get so developed that we could get so much attached to speak through emotions.
They were blissful creatures. They would always hop around from one building to the other in sheer enthusiasm. Those tiny creatures might have been tortured a lot by the larger ones, it showed on their bodies. There were scars many times on their bodies. But it never stopped them from showing their gaiety. I remember when I used to throw down some of the pieces of chapattis that mom gave me for breakfast. They used to be on cloud nine on seeing them. The way they amused each other was also very sweet. They hid themselves among the bushes and would come up surprisingly to amuse their partner. They had sense of euphoria around them.
But one day, what I saw in the morning shook me. On one of the roofs of the buildings, I saw crows were flying around something. It was a dead animal. Or two? They were two of the squirrels. They might have eaten something toxic. Their bodies were blue. One of the crows came down to feed on them followed by all others. I threw a few stones on them and they flew away. They never came back. Maybe one of them was hurt. I was sorry to do so but I could not see it. The other two were not seen anywhere. Just then saw two squirrels hopping on a building across the road. They did not seem as joyous. They were just going away. Maybe staying on this place the dark memories would haunt them.
I don’t know where they are. How could I have found out? They were never seen after that morning.
But they taught me lessons that I would not study in school. Looking at them was a lesson before lessons in school. They taught me to stay happy. They taught me to laugh as far as you can. They taught me the value of relations. You don’t need mouths to blabber out words. Your eyes can speak too. They taught me that there is always a way to come out of a trauma. Moving their home was their way of facing the death of their companions. “Smile is the key to all the problems” I had heard this earlier, but they taught it to me.
Nature is the best teacher, they proved it well.
