Keeper of Harmony
Women are like creepers; my mother tells me– or ought to be. Creepers braid themselves around trees– no dissonance, only harmony.
But I want to be the tree, I tell my Mom and she smiles, mysteriously.
The men of my village need to cut a tree whose trunk they will fashion into an Indra dwaja— the flagpole of victory. I shadow these men into the forest where they examine and reject trees pregnant with flowers, trees withered and dry, trees with thorns and parasites, trees with holes holding nests, trees injured by wind or fire, trees of the feminine denomination. Finally, after interviewing many trees– Arjuna, Ashoka, Ashwatha, Aamra– they choose a magnificent male with a broad trunk, standing on black soil. Approaching it at night, they touch its trunk, ask for mercy, and beseech the beings sheltering inside– the ants, worms, bugs, and wasps to find homes elsewhere. Before sunrise, they stand facing east and cut with strokes deft and soft, not jarring to tree or ear because the tree must submit, you see, to its tamed death—unbroken, unbent, untouched, unentangled– else it will have to be abandoned for another supplicant tree that doesn’t host shrill parakeets who protest their fate. When the tree falls, they chant its praises and bury its length in a womb of rose water before carrying it ceremoniously back to the village on caparisoned elephants surrounded by cheering citizenry. On the auspicious day dictated by celestial constellations, they build a sacred fire, offer oblations of twigs, ghee, cow-dung cakes and camphor and wait for the astrologer to read the flames and tell them where and when to mount this head-less impotent tree as symbol of victory on a turmeric-stained platform. When the pole is up, they assuage its wounds by planting seven saplings around it as wives and adorning it with marigold garlands, pearl necklaces and red silks atop which they fly the kingdom’s flag to proclaim to the world that they—the guardians of this tree—are Indra, king of the gods. Women, relegated behind warriors, glance at each other, cover their lips to hide a half-smile which again, I don’t understand.
Some months later, I creep back into the dark forest to sit on the stump of the tree’s history, mostly to ponder my future, my place in the world, my equation with male privilege and how I can seize and wield power. How can I be you; I ask the broad stump of what was once a Terminalia arjuna tree? How can I be powerful, valiant, symbol of victory?
My eyes fall on the red soil upon which I see a bright green creeper—young and sinuous—that was once curled around this very tree. I follow the vine and find to my delight that this curving creeper has now– quietly and without fuss– taken over the entire forest. Wherever I look, I see her delighted green leaves, winking at me as if to ask: who is the victor in this battle?
In that moment, I understand my mother’s smile, the smile of women everywhere who have been underestimated, because it mirrors my own. It is, I finally realize, the pun-sirippu, the secret half-smile of this insurgent, irreverent, innocuous creeper who was left for dead by the warriors of my village. Instead, she surged and captured the forest.
A creeper can become captor.
Shoba Narayan is a bilingual poet who writes in Tamil and English. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from a few literary journals including The Stillwater Review, The Seraphic Review, Rogue Agent, Red Noise Collective, Humans of the World (third place winner of their Summer Poetry Contest 2023), Lucky Jefferson (poetry contest finalist) and others. She has published five memoirs. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Condenast Traveler, The Guardian, The National, and Gourmet, winning her a James Beard award and Pulitzer Fellowship. She hosts the Bird Podcast.
