Ensconced in a dream: waking to a fantasy

             The sky was a bright azure as she lay on her back, admiring the contrast created by the lush verdant foliage of the huge walnut tree that was in the farthest corner of the field.  Lost in the moment, she squinted through the gaps in the dense foliage, spotting an occasional red speck punctuating the frame and it always seemed to vanish faster than it had appeared. It fascinated her no end and sometimes she was so taken up by the sight that she slipped into a languid stupor, only to be rudely woken up by her name wafting in spurts through the valley.

            This was her favourite position and safest haven; she waited eagerly every morning to escape to this retreat, for a while beneath this soothingly serene canopy. All of ten, she felt a strange tug to the spot and was often reprimanded by her mom for loitering off from the field where she and many other women worked all day. They only took a brief nap around mid-morning and then got back to the business of tending to the fields, singing softly or chatting or sometimes in complete silence, depending on the degree of work, the number of working hands and the situation back home.

Her mother often coaxed her to learn the little things at home as well as help around in the field. Well it wasn’t really that she didn’t want to work or help mother with the daily chores; it was just that she loved to get lost, lost in a timeless suspended feeling.
She found it very difficult to explain the emotion to anyone, but sometimes when she shared it with her mom, she could see just the trace of a smile and a glint in her mother’s eye that almost said I completely understand what you feel little girl. She almost said, through that all enveloping, loving look that only a mother or mother like figure is capable of perhaps, “I just hope this bubble doesn’t burst and you remain ensconced in its loving embrace.” That was the implicit part, but, for impact she would say explicitly, “Come on girl, move! Stop being an absolutely lazy lass, there’s loads to do from sunrise to sunset, stop twiddling your thumbs or gazing into the infinite nothingness.”

Sometimes the little one felt she understood everything that the mother said and sometimes she was at a complete loss.

Seasons changed, the tree became more robust, the leaves grew thinner  and then thicker with time and soon, the little lass had transformed into a  beautiful and graceful young girl, with all the energy and beauty that only youth can exude, wrapped like a diaphanous veil around her.

But for her, little had changed; she had learnt to assist her mom with the odd jobs around the house and the field. Mom was still as active and agile as a bee, or that is what she fondly liked to picture her as. But, there seemed to be something bothering mom nowadays, perhaps it was the fact that dad was away somewhere faraway at the border and she missed him as she grew older, for when she was just ten she clearly remembered her mom being one of the strongest pillars in the entire village, someone who was there for all around.

Most of the men from the village had to go to town in search of work while the womenfolk stayed back to look after the fields and livestock.  On one such day when mom seemed to be in deep reverie, the young daughter picked up enough courage to take her by her hand and walk her all the way to her little hideout near the walnut tree. They sat there for what seemed like eternity. Then she asked her mom to lie down too and look up at the thick leaves as she had done for as long as she could remember and they giggled like two little girls sharing a deep secret.

Seasons changed and the winter set in and mom seemed worried about something, there were little whispers and exchanges in the house of which the young and now almost stunningly beautiful girl had no clue.

 Mother was really old now, but still strikingly beautiful, her grand-daughter sat by her side, under the walnut tree and surprisingly though just about four years old she would every now and then lay down with her head in grandma’s lap and gaze up at the underside of the thick green leaves and chuckle knowingly.

The mother looked over her shoulder from the field as she straightened up from a back breaking three hours of work, tending lovingly to the plants, and clearly remembered the day she was married off to a nice lad down the village and as she cried relentlessly, her mother whispered in her ear, ‘keep coming back to your little haven under the walnut tree, and if you go too far away where the land is different and the leaves another colour just lay down and imagine the verdant canopy of the beautiful walnut tree.

Her lips curled in a smile, a trace of triumph and a speck of naughtiness in the eye as she stooped down to continue work while the two extreme generations basked under the comforting umbrella of the now expansive walnut tree.

©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap