Claiming the Spot

The Indian Rosewood tree, locally called Sheesam is one of the important trees across the country, also culturally embedded. It is a beautiful tree, one that seems to grow more beautiful and vibrant with time.



It has its history deep rooted in making of string instruments such as guitar and sitar and is also preferred by people as their choice of wood for furniture. As for me, I don’t support cutting down trees, I like them standing and dancing to the winds and rains just as they are.



There is an Indian Rosewood tree in the society park near my friend’s house. It’s near the boundary wall of the park with its branches reaching out beyond the edges of the park. There was no house in front of it, now there is.



The empty plot of land was used by several people to park their cars, the kind of people who despite the space don’t build car parking in their houses and think roads were built for them to park cars.



However, the most sought-after place for parking was not on the empty land, but under the partial shade of the part of Indian rosewood tree beyond the wall of the park. Two SUVs and one hatchback or three hatchbacks could be parked under the shade of the tree.



Great battles were fought verbally to claim the spot under the tree, leading to several neighbourhood meetings leading to no effective conclusions. Once as me and my friend were standing and talking in the tree’s shade a car came honking, literally ready to fight with us if we did not move.



It has become a battleground here with people owning more cars and bigger cars than they actually need and there isn’t enough space to park them all. Everyone wants that shaded parking where during the day their car would stand under less heat from the sun. With parking spaces becoming scarce I predict that one day people will stop travelling in cars, given the jams and how far they would have to park from where they intend to reach. The purpose of it might vanish altogether.



So back to the people claiming the tree’s shade. The problem was solved, no, the highly educated people with very respectable income range did not do it. It was the tree itself. One night there was a thunderstorm accompanied by rain and in the morning, people stood to the view of a big branch having fallen on one of the SUVs standing with the other receiving some damage as well. The roof of the car was bent in with windows and most of the windshield shattered.



People stopped parking there for a while and in that time someone bought the land in front and the construction of the house began, effectively ending the parking issue at that particular spot.

Written by Anuran Chatterji

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