I do not remember who the author was. I can not remember even the magazine’s name. All I remember is that I had read it in my childhood and it was about a sal leaf.
The sal leaf had its oigin in ..well..a sal tree. The tree itself was in a great and ancient sal forest by a clear blue river. Every day the dawn would light up the leaf and cast its shadow on the ground. The leaf felt warmed in the winter months and scorched in the summer afternoons. Still, there was nothing to complain. The evening breeze would caress the leaf and its friends and they would appreciate with a tiny chorus of murmurs. The leaf could look at the river and watch the mirrored sunset.
Then, after some months someone came and plucked the leaf like sal leaves are plucked for making a number of things. After an obscure journey which seemed like an eternity, the leaf found itself in the cart of a streetfood vendor in a dusty congested town. It did not have sufficient time to cope with the shock though. Business was good for the vendor and the sal leaf met a predictable end in the nearest drain after its purpose was served.
There, lying among the heap of garbage, all the leaf could hope for was a breeze, a strong breeze, like the breeze from that blue river. The breeze could help it levitate and land somewhere else, anywhere. But in that scorching heat and clouds of vehicular emissions, nothing came to the leaf’s help.
It then quietly resigned itself to its fate and kept laying there, thinking about yesterday and that great whispering forest and the blue river.
I remembered the story long after I had forgotten all about the source and the age I had read it first. Then in the middle there was another leaf, well a bunch of leaves to be exact. This time it came from National Geographic, during one of their 15 sec preludes or promos of a series. It showed a bunch of leaves slowly gliding down towards a forest floor in greyscale. I somehow liked that inconsequential ad and thought I had always liked falling leaves.
Much much later, in hindsight during one of those moments where there was nothing else to think of, I had thought about the two different leaves. Longer I thought, more it dawned on me that they were not dissimilar at all. The sal leaf had only memories and the falling leaf had no conscious control over its path and did not know what awaited it on the ground. Then I realized that most of my life, I have been running away from becoming either of them.
But, like they say, the things you resent have strange ways of catching up with you. So I see them staring at me quite often. The disenchanted sal leaf and the free-falling leaf.
The sal leaf had its oigin in ..well..a sal tree. The tree itself was in a great and ancient sal forest by a clear blue river. Every day the dawn would light up the leaf and cast its shadow on the ground. The leaf felt warmed in the winter months and scorched in the summer afternoons. Still, there was nothing to complain. The evening breeze would caress the leaf and its friends and they would appreciate with a tiny chorus of murmurs. The leaf could look at the river and watch the mirrored sunset.
Then, after some months someone came and plucked the leaf like sal leaves are plucked for making a number of things. After an obscure journey which seemed like an eternity, the leaf found itself in the cart of a streetfood vendor in a dusty congested town. It did not have sufficient time to cope with the shock though. Business was good for the vendor and the sal leaf met a predictable end in the nearest drain after its purpose was served.
There, lying among the heap of garbage, all the leaf could hope for was a breeze, a strong breeze, like the breeze from that blue river. The breeze could help it levitate and land somewhere else, anywhere. But in that scorching heat and clouds of vehicular emissions, nothing came to the leaf’s help.
It then quietly resigned itself to its fate and kept laying there, thinking about yesterday and that great whispering forest and the blue river.
I remembered the story long after I had forgotten all about the source and the age I had read it first. Then in the middle there was another leaf, well a bunch of leaves to be exact. This time it came from National Geographic, during one of their 15 sec preludes or promos of a series. It showed a bunch of leaves slowly gliding down towards a forest floor in greyscale. I somehow liked that inconsequential ad and thought I had always liked falling leaves.
Much much later, in hindsight during one of those moments where there was nothing else to think of, I had thought about the two different leaves. Longer I thought, more it dawned on me that they were not dissimilar at all. The sal leaf had only memories and the falling leaf had no conscious control over its path and did not know what awaited it on the ground. Then I realized that most of my life, I have been running away from becoming either of them.
But, like they say, the things you resent have strange ways of catching up with you. So I see them staring at me quite often. The disenchanted sal leaf and the free-falling leaf.
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