Social Story – Maple Leaves and fireflies
Photo credit: jeltovski from morguefile.com
April 1985
The friendly looking man standing near the road had warned, “slippery road ahead”.
But that didn’t deter the woman from entering the narrow passage. In reality, it wasn’t a road. It was a winding stairway made of slimy stones, basically protruding out of a steep hill. The passage started at the top of the hill near the concrete road and led one downhill with a few missing stones here and there. In such places, one had to simply jump from one stone to another. The only problem was, if you missed one, you could end up an undiscovered corpse in one of the deep caves hidden beneath the wild shrubs.
But this woman had a mission in hand and nothing in the world could dampen her spirit, not even the tropical humidity. Her white robe stuck to her fragile body, but she had more than two thousand steps to cover.
At first, it looked like a breezy walk. However, the downward journey, although easy as compared to uphill climbing, slowly ate away her energy and by the time she reached the bottom, the missionary woman was severely dehydrated. The sun had already reached overhead when the woman covered the last few slippery stones. She had been lucky to reach the village in time without any accident, except for innumerable insect bites and a mild cut from the wild grass. In two hours, she would have to convince the villagers about setting up a school for their children and make the backward journey uphill, the most dreaded part of her mission.
Panting, the woman sat down on a big rock for a while. From her seat, she could hear the gushing river behind the bushes. Slowly, she climbed the rock and the heaven that unfolded before her eyes almost took away her breath. Her parched lip bled when she smiled.
Identical bamboo huts peered out of the deep forest and a ferocious river separated this tiny village from the rest of the civilization. The only connection to the outside world was a root bridge that had probably existed for more than hundred years. Entwined to both the rocky banks of the river, the root bridge had probably witnessed more light and darkness than anything in that forest. No hard guessing, the construction had been the outcome of the patient handiwork of nature that only grew stronger with time; a rare thing to behold! Late morning sun rays had slipped through the roots and the water beneath looked like a fine tapestry.
A few more steps through the bridge and there awaited her destination.
The river roared under the web of those miraculous roots and the bridge creaked with every determined step of this intruder. I am using the term intruder because she didn’t belong there and the forest looked so sacred that one needed the heart to enter it unannounced. The huts and the forest looked like a page from a picture book, inseparable from one another until you rip apart the page. Or you can compare the whole setting with the calm surface of a lake and Agatha’s arrival was like a tiny pebble that created mild ripples on the surface when thrown with mild force. Underneath, a school of scared fishes swam away to safety.
This woman in a white robe was on a mission to spread light in the deep jungles of the Eastern most part of India, precisely the East Khasi Hills.
This place we are talking about still remains untouched except for some concrete steps here and there. The journey downhill and upward is still murderous and on entering the path, one is engulfed by the silence of the forest. Occasionally, the forest would see tired looking trekkers making their way to the root bridge. For the rest of the villagers, it is the same path they take every day; their road to struggles and survival. The ‘slippery road sign board’ has been long gone and there stands a painted signboard that says ‘Double Decker Root Bridge’. Under the boards, some weary traveler had once scribbled a few words of warning ‘3000 steps ahead’.
This story I am telling you is all about how we live in a world of shared dreams. This is a tiny part of the story of dreams that connect us all in one invisible thread. This is a story of dreams to see to the unseen.
Now, standing by the root bridge, this woman in a white robe was slowly approached by the timid villagers. A white woman in a white robe! It was their turn to be awestruck. The first white woman to step into their territory. Children hid behind their mothers, the teenage boys marveled at her marble-like skin and the women shied away. The elderly men had no option but to offer their betel nut stained, toothless smiles.
The juxtaposition of their silence, the sound of the river and the discomfort caused by this sudden intrusion was finally put to an end when the woman opened her mouth to speak. She spoke the sweetest words, ‘Agatha’. Her words were like music or we could call it magic and she spoke in their dialect of things they didn’t much understand. If a school in the village could make this woman stay with them forever then why not a school. She was about twenty-five years old and radiated youthful vigor. She was like an angel or, in correct words, a forest fairy and nothing would make them happier than the presence of this woman in a white robe, now dirty from all the walk through the jungle. But one thing they knew for sure, she had a white soul.
After two hours, with the promise of coming back the next day, Agatha turned to make her upward journey. The sun had already gone a few notches down. She had to hurry.
As people gazed with star-struck eyes at this disappearing figure a ten-year-old boy, hiding behind his mother noticed something no one else did. As darkness approached, he slipped out of his hut and picked up a photograph the woman had accidentally left behind. Rather, it had fallen from her tattered diary.
“Tiplang, come with me”, his mother took his hand and they left for their hut.
It was a beautiful photograph of a golden-eyed girl about his age. Her cherubic cheeks were brick red and her gold like hair shone in the bright sun. Most importantly, behind this beautiful girl was the most breathtaking tree this little soul had ever seen. Of course, Tiplang had seen the forest very closely and knew each and every flora and fauna. But this tree was entirely different. By now, he was convinced that the woman in the white robe was indeed an angel and the girl in the photograph must have been her daughter living in paradise. Because, golden leaves could only exist in paradise. So he had heard.
The girl in the photograph was not Agatha’s daughter but her nephew, living in a San Francisco orphanage at that time. She would occasionally send her pictures to Agatha in the mail that took ages to arrive in that remote part of the country. Still, Agatha would feel her heart flutter each time a mail came her way. And when she wrote back, she always talked about her work and her inspirations.
Back in 1951, the British had long abandoned their colonial pursuits in India. However, Indian’s adoption of the new constitution in 1950 secured religious pursuits as India had declared itself a secular country with religious tolerance and the Christian missionaries, especially from America, thronged in with renewed zeal. Soon, like blood in veins, they spread and spread, reaching godforsaken (?) places in need of the Christ and for that matter education and health.
And in one of such missionary waves, Agatha’s grandfather had reached the Indian shores in a cold Bombay morning of the year 1951. About forty years old and solitary, he had not much to lose in this Indian mission except for a beautiful diary once gifted by his dead wife, always tucked inside his beige suitcase. The grandfather’s diary dated from 1951-1968 spoke of a land with untamed waterfalls, rice fields, and fireflies. As a child, Agatha would long to see the different world her grandfather had described from his years-long journey across the land of snake charmers and magic. Most of all, the diary told stories of people and nature. Unlike the stereotypes, her grandfather’s diary never spoke of anything savage. His stories were about the ability of the Indians to survive any odds, their indomitable spirit, and their beautiful brown faces.
The diary had entries from a place called Bastar, now a part of modern day Chhattisgarh, where he was working with his fellow missionaries to set up a school. The mission failed due to the hostile attitude of the locals and the growing uneasiness with the authorities. In the diary, Agatha’s grandfather wrote about a huge waterfall overlooking the Indravati River and how it shone like a silver blanket on a full moon day. He talked about fireflies too. And all of this was enough for make Agatha dream.
The dream of fireflies eventually brought her to India. If not the waterfall, she ended up in this hidden paradise where she was to set up her school. Needless to say, Tiplang was one of her first students. Most of the children stayed away from school. Collecting honey from the tall forest trees seemed more fun. But Tiplang was attending his school on a regular basis.
One day, when Agatha spoke about Jesus and the paradise, Tiplang couldn’t help but ask her about the golden leaves. She didn’t understand and then timidly he took out the photograph from his sack. Agatha had been looking for the photograph everywhere but instead of getting angry she smiled. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that the tree with golden leaves didn’t belong to the paradise. She carefully explained that in her part of the world the trees change colour in Autumn and it was nothing but a natural phenomenon. It was just another tree in her country. It was just another maple tree.
“But you could visit my country to see the autumn foliage when you grow up”, she tried to make him feel better. He felt better indeed. Because, visiting a foreign country to him seemed easier than getting a ticket to the paradise. After all, he hadn’t been a very good boy a lot of times!
A drop of tear trickled down Agatha’s sunburnt cheeks. She saw herself in his dreamy eyes and she saw her grandfather sitting in front of a magnificent waterfall and writing about a magical world. She remembered seeing her mother cry after receiving the diary in the mail, a couple of weeks after her grandfather’s death. Although it was a death to be mourned Agatha had rejoiced the arrival of the diary. It was like a birthday present. A dream gift wrapped in the form of a tattered diary! Ever since, she had never let that diary go out of her sight.
When she came back to her reality, Tiplang had already made plans for his journey to America.
October 2004
The park looked empty from the window of the landing and the man aimed to reach the brightest bench in the park before anyone else took it. As he walked downed the stairs, he was smiling. He almost bumped into a man with a dog near the lift. The dog sniffed this stranger and the man blurted a few fond words about his dog. But, he wasn’t listening. He was in a hurry and in a quite unapologetic manner, he burst out of the building. In front of his eyes, was a different world. A different world full of golden trees! Giddy with happiness, he staggered to the bench and tried to live his first sight of the autumn foliage. Sitting in a small European city, Tiplang was far away from his American dream but his dream was not to live the rich American life. His dream was to experience the beauty he once saw in a photograph and Europe gave him the chance to live the same. The trees had every color he could imagine. This was the world Agatha had exchanged for his and her grandfather’s world of fireflies.
A golden maple leaf fell on his lap. He looked down squinting his eyes, trying to feel its texture. Suddenly, something changed. He was now on his knees. The happiness was replaced by a sudden pang of sadness rolling out of his eyes into the ground. A mild wind was blowing from the East and this carried him far away to his beautiful village. How could he ever forget the day when Agatha first came to the village dressed in her white robe! He thought she was an angel. And, how could he ever forget the day he left that world, never wanting to return!
Ten years had gone by, but the memories felt so fresh.
The day Tiplang left the village, was a rain soaked day. The river under the root bridge was swelling with all the rain this place had been getting the whole week. It was the rainiest place on planet earth after all. Tiplang, now a tall twenty-year-old youth, was on his way to help Agatha in her school before leaving for his college in the nearby town. The school looked empty and there was no sign of Agatha.
After waiting for an hour when Tiplang decided to look for Agatha he had no idea where to look for her. This village had been her dwelling ever since she had first set foot in the village. Holding a huge colocasia leaf above his head, Tiplang set out in the rain to look for Agatha in the town. Something might have come up at the last moment. The rain had made the narrow road slippery and his pace slower. After an hour of climbing uphill when Tiplang decided to rest and look back, he saw his villagers gather near the huge stream to the east of the river.
In a matter of a heartbeat, he turned and ran downhill. He slipped and gravity brought him down to the edge of the mad looking river. A shrub saved him from falling straight into the currents, but it cut his chest leaving a trail of blood. He got up not minding his bruises and ran towards the stream. The root bridge creaked under his weight but at that moment he didn’t care for his life. The bridge felt like a tunnel closing on him and when he reached the stream he saw Agatha’s lifeless body surrounded by silent villagers. Both his and her dresses were red with blood. His fresh and her’s light, wet from a drenched night. Her white robe was now a canvas smudged with the colors blood, moss, and mud.
Tiplang turned again and disappeared into the jungle. He never returned to his village.
He didn’t understand why would anyone kill her. He didn’t want to understand. Perhaps, dreams are dangerous at times. We dream and follow its path. Sometimes, we reach the destination; sometimes we don’t. Sometimes, dreams have consequences too. However, this doesn’t stop us from dreaming. Agatha lived her dream and Tiplang followed his. That is how this story should have ended. But why to stop when this wasn’t the end. Like I said in the beginning, our dreams are sewn in an invisible thread and it goes on and on.
Tiplang got up from the ground to go to his. He was working at a school in this European town. Today he was going to tell his children the story of a wondrous root bridge. He would also tell them the stories of the rainiest place on planet earth and how all the trees there remain green all throughout the year.
Note: This is a story inspired by the experiences gathered on many trips across different places. The plot and the characters are entirely fictional.
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