The road is always a good place to find a friend in any stranger. It was late in the evening. I was going somewhere accompanied by few other people I had met on the road. Some of them were moving fast while others were not in a rush. All of us were moving silently as if we had nothing to talk about, but inside each of us we had a story to tell.
Suddenly I stopped but no one stopped with me. The man with the flowers and chocolates ran off to see his children and wife. The old man kept moving slowly and steadily. The beautiful woman walked away with her little dog. Everyone left me – they were just pretending to be friends on the way. Some more were coming my way but I did not wait for them for I knew they wouldn’t wait for me. People were moving and I was standing all alone near the lamppost by the tree.
I often come here and watch the tree. I couldn’t climb the tree nor could I climb up that lamppost to see if everyone was fine in the nest. I was kind of worried about the birds that lived in the nest. So I called out to the lamppost, “Do you hear me?” But the lamppost was too tall to hear my voice properly. I couldn’t grow up to that height nor could it bend itself a little. I used a sign language that the lamppost understood well. I asked the lamppost, “Do you see the nest in the tree?” The lamppost replied, “Yes, I see it everyday.” And then I asked, “Can you see the birds in the nest? Is everyone fine over there? Are they together?” The lamppost replied, “Yes, they are all sleeping, covered with warm feathers and everyone seems to be happy.”
But how could I believe that lamppost? Perhaps it was lying, just to make me feel happy. I said to the lamppost, “How can you say that? What if you are lying to me? Perhaps you are not telling me the truth just because I can not go up there and see. Why don’t you tell me that the eggs are stolen? Why don’t you tell me that the little ones are dying without their parents? Or why don’t you tell me that the nest is empty?” The lamppost said nothing at all.
I stood on the ground, watching the leaves falling down. Finally the lamppost asked me, “Do you know what is written on the fallen leaves?” I said I could not understand anything. Then the lamppost said, “Let me read it for you then.” The lamppost said, “It says: I often see you here. Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you go?”
“It is written for you. It is the handwriting of the tree,” the lamppost said.
Milan Rai Artist, Activist
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