When she married a Peepal Tree... 

“Can we not get her married to the dog?” asked Binti’s father.”After  all that is what Haldhar Jha suggested for Balram’s daughter”

The dog stretched its body in languid acquiescence. Binti the seventeen year old didn’t mind the dog at all.

She preferred the dog to the one she was betrothed to marry. She had been promised to Rambhar. Rambhar was at that age where a marriage contract would just get him a girl, he had to relinquish the right to a dowry.

“These weddings are quick.  No tantrums from the boy’s side of the family for dowry etc. No high drama from the bride’s side where the father threatens to kill himself if the groom’s side left without marrying the daughter.” The pandit scratched an itch on his belly. In an ideal world that is how weddings would be.

He looked at the dog. The dog who was busy licking Binti’s feet looked up at him beseechingly enough. “The dog would do his part. And then be happy with a bowl of food.” The Pandit was having second thoughts.

When he looked like he might relent Bhajan piped in. “I consulted with the Pandit from the temple. He agrees with me.”

No Pandit likes to be challenged. And Bhajan had done so by quoting a rival Pandit.

“Binti’s curse is a potent cocktail of Mangal Dosh and Sarpadosha. It will annihilate the village as we know it” He banged his hand on the horoscope.

 Mangal Dosha  was complicated by the curse of the serpent - Sarpadosha - that he spotted through the middle parting of Binti’s hair.

“A snake coiled ready to strike at the world.” He gesticulated the strike with his hand.

Binti’s mother covered Binti’s head and shielded the world from the serpent.

Binti looked up. Suddenly she was no longer a boring reality, but a fantastic problem to be dealt with. A frisson of excitement ran down her spine.

“You need to donate a statue of golden Ganesh to the temple” the pandit upped the ante.

“Can’t we just get her to fast on Tuesdays” wailed Bhajan piteously.

“That is mandatory but she needs to do more”. The Pandit was in no mood to relent.

“Okay how about getting her married to a tree? That is what the usual remedy is, isn’t it?” Bhajan was a scrooge and a rationalist.  And if he didn’t make the Pandit see sense soon he would lose all the money he had saved to buy a new thresher.

“Her Dosha is not the usual kind” the Pandit put his point forward.

“But this is all we can afford” Bhajan laid his cards on the table.

“Can you donate a cow then?” Pandit was on the backfoot.

“She is marrying someone twice her age because we had to refuse the guy who wanted a scooter” revealed Bhajan.

“Okay, go find a Peepal tree” said the Pandit.

“Can’t it just be a banana tree? There is one in our backyard.” Bhajan was a tough customer.

“It HAS to be a Peepal tree” The Pandit now dug his heels in.

“The Peepal tree is in the village chaupal. If we get her married in the middle of the village there will be a crowd. That many people to feed” reasoned Bhajan.

“Then find one in the jungle.” Sighed the Pandit.

Bhajan had browbeaten the Pandit. The wedding would amount to nothing. The Pandit was sure that the girl would bring curse upon the world, and the least he could do was provide a placebo.

Bhajan looked for a week and he couldn’t find a peepal tree. It proved to be as difficult as finding a real groom for her. He really didn’t believe in the picture of the lurid apocalyptic future the Pandit had painted. But Binti was manglik and no one would marry her till they had been convinced that she had been cleansed of the dosha. The wedding needed to happen.

And as if the tree in front of him read his mind.  When he had bumped into the tree it didn’t look like a Peepal Tree. And then it did.

A Big handsome Peepal tree, its roots a baroque weave skimming the earth. It’s branches taking center-stage in the sky above all the other trees. The leaves that willed themselves to dance rising above the dependence on the breeze.  The rest of the forest was absolutely still.

How could he have missed it?

Binti was married off to the tree. Not the dog, not the banana tree but the Peepal tree.

The Peepal tree, a natural abode for serpents, bowed it’s branches graciously, when Binti with the Sarpdosh, the curse of the serpent, approached it.

The air stood still and heavy as she tied a red cloth around it. And then she hugged it.

Thin, waif-like, wispy Binti. Binti dressed in red lehenga and red dupatta.  The silhouette of the embrace reminded one of a creeper, a dappled snake wrapped around the huge peepal tree. Almost as nature had designed it to be that way.

A boy goes through childhood, pre-pubescence and adulthood. A girl is born a miniature woman. Her life on earth finds fruition in the act of getting married.

As the Pandit chanted the mantras, Binti hugged the husband, simulating the act of copulation by which he would absorb her doshas and she would be free of them.  The Peepal tree, a social hermaphrodite, taking on the role of both man and woman. As man providing her protection as woman exorcising her of bad energy and taking it all inside him.

He would be a better husband than any she could find. Then Binti remembered the man she was supposed to marry and she wept a little.

When the wedding party of 10 left for home the pandit whined a little. “That the tree didn’t exactly look like a peepal tree.”

Binti knew she had a tree growing inside her when her mother swore that she had seen tentative tendrils, green and delicate peep outside her mouth.

There was going to be a scandal now. A girl married to a tree is technically married, but for all practical purposes still on the marriage market. Who would marry someone who was carrying a tree inside her.

Bhajan was furious with Binti, but since the situation was quite unique he didn’t know how to form the terms of je’accuse.

Binti was not sure what had happened. Her younger sister had hazarded a guess.

“It’s the hug. You just didn’t seem to let it go. After all what could be more parturient than a woman’s body.”

The story had the right amount of absurdity to take a life of it’s own.

The long thin ends of the root sometimes tickled her toes from inside which made her laugh. Sometimes felt an urge to be at one with the earth. Her human body just a chrysalis to bring forth something rare and beautiful. She often dreamt of the Peepal tree.

Her parents spent a lot of time looking for the pandit, who had disappeared. They didn’t notice Binti who was pining her life away.

Nobody had noticed, but she had. The tree had disappeared too! She was a little dour about that. Like it was beneath the tree to let her down like this. She expected more of it.

She brought it up with her parents.

“How can a tree move? Maybe we got the location wrong?”

The curious case of the ambulatory tree and the rogue pandit was a mystery that fascinated every one.

But the visits to the village doctor were more secret.

“There is no way to get it out.” The doctor mumbled.

The symbiotic synchronicity of the large intestine and the branches had him so excited he took a picture of the ultrasound and instagrammed it.

It was a rare day he had come to the clinic, and Binti’s visit had made it worthwhile.

The Instagram was spotted by a botanist. He was equally excited. He took a sample of the leaf and told Binti that she was host to an extinct species. Almost extinct.  They called it Ouroboros. No one had spotted one for thousands of years. And she was bringing one to fruition.  She was special.  She was unique.

A curious role reversal in the evolution, Binti was like the tree that makes peace with the ape that has decided to make it home.

After Binti made peace with the tree that had decided to resurrect itself inside her she realized it was not all bad.

She didn’t have to get married. Bhajan didn’t mind her frequent visits to the forest as long as she was not in the public eye.

In a couple of months there were lumps that started forming over her body. When poked, they yielded. Pliant. But firmly came back forming contours all over her body.  She started regurgitating fruits. Unripe. Green.

In spirit most women are against auto cannibalism. But Binti got an unsuspecting victim to taste the fruit. Her younger brother complained it was bitter.

After all, aren’t we a sum total of our state of being. Binti was definitely bitter. She missed her husband. The Peepal tree.

And then one day she just didn’t wake up.

The Pandit was back. He refused her the cremation rights. He accused Bhajan of creating this abomination.

Later they took her body deep in the jungle and buried it.

In a couple of days a sapling sprang out from Binti’s body to lap up the air and take in the sun. It became a beautiful Peepal tree.

The fruits turned sweet yellow and dropped off from the trees.

And that is when Binti felt damp, wet earth again.

After all what could be more parturient than the earth. Binti was resurrected from the dead.

The fruits that dropped from the tree and the seeds that had scattered from it produced a fully formed Binti.

A lover that consumed her only to regurgitate her back. But give back more than what it had consumed.

An intertwined fractal existence. Woman in a Tree. Tree in a Woman. Self replicating.

A dozen Bintis looked lovingly at the large Peepal tree which stood tall between them. The canopy of the trees, deep in the wood was a Seraglio the kind the world had never seen. Of lovers, of parthogenesis of sorority.

 They also discussed the state of the saplings they  were carrying inside themselves.

All women. Born fully formed who didn’t need men to procreate and loved who they married. The Peepal tree. And gave birth to who they loved. The Peepal tree.