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Lessons from the Guava tree in our backyard

There is a guava tree in our backyard. It bears tiny juicy guavas every summer which we yearn to pluck with much pomp.

Makes me wonder, trees are givers. They never expect anything in return. Neither do they discriminate - their fruits are available for anyone to feast on; squirrels, bats, rodents (including humans). 

Every morning we scrutinise the tree to check for ripening fruits if any, as we sip on our cups of tea. It’s a race so as who would be the first to pluck them. Most likely it is Dad who wins and occasionally me, if i decide to address my boredom in between official meetings.

On one such evening when i noticed my father intricately balance himself on a delicate branch which was already wobbling under the pressure of his weight, I yelled from my gallery asking him to be careful! In response, he gave me a earful and a lesson on basics even under these given circumstances. “The bark of a guava tree is one of the strongest!” he said as he looked at me with irritation and tried to stretch his arm to pluck a guava above his left shoulder. I rolled my eyes and continued to stare at the branch with apprehension as he shifted his leg to embark himself.

Guava trees tie us to a bit of our past. We had one in our old house albeit it was much more grandiose in structure. It also bore fruits on a much larger scale and we couldn’t pluck most of them as they were beyond our reach. In the months of summer, these would then fall to the ground and create a pink carpet as they rottened and returned to the earth.

I have lost a count of the numbers of photographs that exist in our albums of us and many others around this tree. Recently a cousin of mine mentioned that when they visited our place, his Dad would first take a detour to pluck some guavas and then enter our house. I still remember Neel’s giggles from a year ago, when he would run around this tree in circles or ask his Mom to pluck the “Wowaas” 

I think these tiny elements from our past invariably influence our present. Had it not been for the memories we had attached ourselves with this tree in our old house, we would have not planted one in our current house. In essence, our present is just a refined version of our past. 

If we yearn to carve a different future for ourselves, it is our present that needs to be altered because it will eventually become our past and influence our future.

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