A window seat and a moving train can bring pleasure and pain, to a traveller, if sensitive to the surroundings: the panoramic scenery, rushing by, of wild flowers, native trees, green fields, parched lands and occasional chain of mountains or at least hillocks dotting the plains, here and there.
The wild flowers and native trees standing at a distance from the track resemble friends and relatives who have come to see off the passengers, at the platform. These plants are like those people, who even under personal hardship, never fail to turn up to wish a happy journey. The difference is , relatives go home but not these enthusiasts!
The distant mountain chain presents a sleepy appearance not allowing its finer details to escape and come to the viewer. Occasionally a column of smoke rising from one of the link (mountain) in the chain kindles a little interest, because a bush fire has unilaterally decided to catch an eye or attention. If fortunate, the traveller might get a glimpse of sparkling stream of a waterfall, like a shawl draped over the mountain’s shoulder.
The hillocks are the bare-all type; exhibit gleefully their green cover or boulder strewn bared-it-all physique. Though not even a cloud passes over it, the hillock makes it up by displaying boulders shaped like an elephant, a bear or even a lion, keeping them on permanent display. Theses precariously perched boulders resemble the banks of summer clouds changing in to different shapes as they float away to disappear from view.
Unlike the rock paintings of early man, these boulders silently bear the scars of modern day art-on-rock-face to greet and inform the traveller of the territorial claims being proclaimed, with symbols of diverse groups, to usurp the reign of nature!
All of a sudden, a dead tree comes in to view. The train slowing down for signal or a winding curve on the track presents this sad picture. The branches, sans leaves, frozen in a gesture of helplessness, the hollow trunk, resembling a cave upright on its feet, the tree stood looking forlorn. Revisiting its nostalgic heydays only brought angst and these unanswered questions: Where are those flocks of birds that used to rest, nest and play? Why the birds are not visiting me anymore, they can still play hide and seek inside my hollow trunk? What happened to those insects that used to scurry along the trunk and branches?
The birds and insects, busy in their day to day life, had neither time nor inclination to post an answer. Moreover, who knows how many generations of them have come and gone?
The window seat traveller was left wondering at the tenacity of the tree to still hold on to its ground through unseen roots. May be it has immunized itself against the heart wrenching feelings of loneliness and wasted life. The barren hillocks, in the background and barren land surrounding the lifeless tree were a plateful of sorrow for the traveller. This question that echoed in his mind: Why is it still standing?
Tear drops rolled out of his eyes as the train started to move. He could guess the answer as to why the dead tree was still standing – to protest against the insensitive humanity in not attempting to give the life back to the fallow land at its feet! Or was it crying for an act of euthanasia? Or standing in the role of a sentinel to warn any flora to put roots there?
With a screeching noise the train started moving and as it passed by the signal pole, the traveller wished that the train had not stopped at that spot. The withered tree left him feeling sad for the rest of the journey.
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