CHOICE OF A BRUISED SAPLING

Standing alone at the crag, Naina continued looking at an arid Rock, holding a patchy bed of dry soil that kept on shifting with a slight whiff without any sign of life

- ANKUR R. GUPTA

A while later, taking a deep breath, she sighed heavily, “Huh, my life is no different than you,” she said, loudly to the mammoth rock. For years you’ve been standing here all alone, crumbling yourself but guarding the lush green vegetation thriving at your foothill from these eroding winds and harsh summers. But do they ever acknowledge your presence?” The poker face crag kept staring at her mutely, wondering the reason, behind this outburst.

A messy divorce and now her job, she had lost it all within a few months. A person who was the epitome of her life discarded her existence for someone else. Her only savior was the job, but with that gone too, Naina felt betrayed and bitter. Cluelessly, she wandered every day on this cliff, brooding and sulking over the pain, destiny had thrown in her lap.

One such day, as she listlessly wandered over the rock, perhaps her only companion, her gaze suddenly fell on a narrow crevice of the rock. Quickly, she bent down and peeped inside it. “Ohh,” she exclaimed in surprise. “From where did you pop in little one,” she said, talking to a fragile-bruised sapling, gasping for life in that minuscule crack. She continued looking inside for a long time with mixed emotions and whispered heavily, “No point little one, you will not live longer to see the next sunshine”. The pessimistic flow of her voice shook the already battered sapling, faintly flinching under the hellish sun with almost no support to its tender roots on stony-parched soil.