The lumberjack looked old—60—maybe older. He mostly wore a white dhoti that had acquired faded yellow color due to overuse. [break]
His grimy blue kurta had stains all over and small holes here and there. He had a dark complexion, his salt and peppered hair was never combed, and you would be tempted to think of the yellow spots on the white of his eyes as a sign of his ripe age, of all that he had seen and weathered.
“This man can’t stand to see a single tree around our house,” dad said, smiling at the man. The lumberjack smiled back. He carried an axe on his shoulder when walking, but as he stood in our backyard, he kept his tool inclined against the wall of our house and cleaned his face with a stole that hung around his neck.
“How much will you charge?” Dad asked.
“Je man lagchhai diya?” the lumberman replied. Whatever you feel like.
“Kichho nahi diya ta hetai?” my father joked. Will it be okay if I give you nothing?
The lumberjack laughed.
“Cut that mango tree. Cut that branch only,” dad said, pointing a finger at the branch he wanted chopped off. “Leave the other branch untouched. Bujhali?”
“Haun,” said the lumberman nodding. Understood!
“Haun!” dad said in sharp mocking tone. “Tu sab kenang puchhtai bhujhali ta kaichhi haun, aar kaam sab unta kardena chhai,” dad said, chiding the lumberjack. You people say that you understand everything but in the end everything is messed up.
The lumberjack just grinned in response.
As dad blew air into the homemade oven to kindle the flame, the lumberjack sat beside him. “Why are you sitting here instead of getting on with your work?” dad asked.
“Didn’t have a chance to have tea,” the lumberjack said, casually. He had arrived at our home at six thirty. He lived on the outskirts, from where it took nearly one and a half hours to reach our home in the city. Probably his family members weren’t even awake when he left home.
When the tea was ready, mom asked me to take three cups, for dad, the lumberjack and me.
“Dus taka chai ke kataichhi, thik chhai?” dad said. Will deduct 10 Rupees from your wage for the tea, okay?
The lumberjack laughed that off as well. He knew when to take dad seriously and when not to.
“Why do you leave home so early?” I asked, handing him the cup.
“I can’t walk in the scorching sun,” the old man said. “There was a time when I didn’t have to walk so far in search of work.” Then he spoke of the time when the place was not divided into city, town and suburbs.
That was the time when the two rivers that flanked the city on the eastern and western edges, marking the cities’ boundaries, flowed with full force.
“The rivers you see today aren’t even the shadow of what existed then,” the lumberjack said. “Today, the one on the east comes to life only when it’s fed with waters from the overflowing Koshi River during monsoon and the other has shrunk so drastically that it no longer inspires the same fear and reverence as it did in the past.”
This lumberjack had given up keeping track of time long ago. “What’s the use when it’s the doom that you’re heading towards,” he said.
He had a good reason for what he prophesied. He had seen the ground beneath his feet change from wild vegetation to prairie to crop fields that “breathed” into “lifeless” dusty trails to gravel to the goddamn asphalt of today that “breathe fire” when it is too hot.
“When they almost wiped out the forest, I felt sad, but when they began to cut down
bar and pipal trees, I sensed this place had come under the curse of the devil,” the lumberjack said.
“The towering trees of bar and pipal at different locations were a mystical presence,” he went on. “Their jumbo size and hulking branches spanning over huge area were a testimony of their majestic existence.”
Then he explained how those trees had patronizing influence on the people. “People worshipped those trees, thought of them as god’s abode, and whenever they had to pass by those trees, they circumambulated it clockwise as a show of respect,” he said.
The lumberjack didn’t understand that all those changes were meant for progress. The city’s pristine face –languid but refreshingly calm and serene –was replaced by the mask of urbanization.
He didn’t understand all the rush. “What does all this huffing and puffing supposed to mean?” he asked. “People think if they slowed down a bit to catch breath the whole world will come crashing down. But if you ask me, they would do a great service to Mother Earth if they gave her a break from all this progress.”
The writer is a copy editor at Republica. He admires Gabriel Garcia Marquez and wishes to someday write a novel imitating his style.
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