Every time I see a random guava tree, I get this mushy feeling. There’s something about those old trees, particularly the ones around older housing societies, with their large canopies and abundant foliage. These trees stirs up memories of my childhood. As if a barrage of nostalgia would flood into my existing consciousness. And it seems it just happened yesterday. I think back to the days when I would climb my neighborhood trees, picking and eating guavas while perched on the branches, and then grabbing a few more when I came down. Every time I saw a guava tree, my eyes would scan through the branches and the leaves to spot the semi-ripe ones. Not a day would pass without scanning the guava trees around my neighborhood. It was almost ritualistic. And finding one of the semi-ripe guava was like finding a treasure buried among the thick covering of leaves. The fruits nourished my stomach and the trees nourished the childhood adventures.
So many houses back then had space both in front and behind, and it was almost a given that everyone would plant a fruit-bearing tree. And for some reason, it was always a guava tree or a papaya. I can still picture the shape of those trees: the one I tried climbing when I was five, the trees I climbed when I was 9 years old, and even those that I climbed in my teenage years. I remember the first house of my memories (probably a 5 year old), we had a huge guava tree always laden with ripe fruits. The fruits were completely out of reach. I would daydream about climbing them like monkeys and enjoy the fruits.
When I was 6 years old, we moved to our new house, one that had some space in the front and back. As customary, we planted a guava tree. I saw the tree grow with me. It grew well with moderate canopy and deep green foliage. The tree provided a beautiful green cover for the entrance of our house. In addition, the summer felt a bit cooler because of the tree. There were always few birds on the trees, which made it even more delightful. My father decided to cut it down to extend the house, and I remember the sadness I felt when it happened. It was the first year the tree had begun bearing fruit, and in my imagination, I was savoring those fruits that still hung on the branches. It was a loss that was hard to describe.
There were plenty of guava trees around the neighborhood. With the trees came the fruits, and with the fruits came the birds. The parrots would come in droves to enjoy the ripe guavas. I would stand below the tree canopy and look up to spot the colourful Indian parrots. What a sight it was! I also remember the taste and shape of the guavas I used to eat. Sometimes I wonder why does that memory linger so strongly? It’s as though the guava became embedded in my sensory experience, and then, somewhere along the way, I lost the receptors for it.
What’s strange is that I don’t recall much about guava trees during my college years. It’s not that they weren’t around; it’s just that my attention had shifted, or maybe everything around me had transformed. As more concrete structures replaced open spaces, many of those trees simply disappeared. Now, it is almost as rare to find those parrots in my childhood days.
Now that I’m back home, we have a few small guava trees, one of which has just started bearing fruit. But for some reason, I don’t feel as attached to them as I once did. Perhaps it’s because guavas are now so commercially available, everywhere you look.
During my stay in the US, we would buy these massive guavas, weighing almost 300 to 400 gms each. These massive guavas tasted very bland, as if they were mass-produced in a factory. Now that I’m back, I continue to enjoy guavas, but something feels different. I’m still searching for the taste of my childhood guavas. Perhaps, it was not just the fruit that made it so special. It was the whole sensory experience of a child’s observation of the tree, the fruits, the canopy, the foliage, the birds, and the humans that lived around it. It speaks of a period of my life when the simple joys of exploring my neighborhood provided such profound experiences.
Maybe it’s just a fading dream, or maybe it’s me who has changed. The consciousness of a 47-year-old is certainly not the same as it was when I was a child. If I had a magic wand, I would wish to have a fruit tree in every child’s house. What spark of joy the trees, the fruits, and the birds would provide to the child’s expanding mind!
