My consciousness—the time when I became conscious of the world around me—was surrounded by trees. Rabong, the village in Western Sikkim where I grew up, was a very beautiful village; it still is, though it has grown now. There were streams, hills, meadows, and during spring we had the perfume of orchids, champas and all these flowers, and the meadows would be carpeted with wild strawberries. We grew up with nature, really, and birds. Birds of so many different kinds, and of course, trees.

Right in front of our house we had an old tree which was covered in moss and foliage, and all kinds of things growing on it, and birds used to be scurrying around all the time, busy, busy, busy. During the spring, when the birds came to nest, we children used to have our day as we could then look at the bird nests. We were not allowed to touch them; if we touched, our elders would be very cross. They used to say that if we touched a nest, the mother bird would abandon it and the chicks would die.

But, right in front of our house, there was a little mound, and on top of that mound was an old tree that had fallen. It was a vast tree and the roots were up and had become like seats. So, in fact, we used to go and sit there. It was like our patio; an extension of our house, really. During sunny days we’d go and bask there, and in the winter, we used to use the entire platform to build a huge bonfire and sit there, and around that bonfire we’d have lots and lots of stories. That was the friendliest tree I remember. My mother had a particular seat. That was one tree that played a huge comforting role in my life. It was dead, but it was still alive because we used it.

Then, I remember, there was one particular tree that was sort of shaped like a bear—the top part, just like a bear! A very friendly tree, for me, because I would look at it and feel comforted by it. But, that tree, a similar kind of tree, came to represent for me ‘home’ and homesickness. You see, one year, when my parents, I think very unwisely and foolishly, thought that my brother and I should be educated and sent us off to live with some family friends in Darjeeling. You know, we were little children, and I remember that year being such a tortured year for us. They had a basement. It wasn’t a basement, really. It wasn’t encircled on all sides. There they used to keep all their broken furniture and things like that. It was open on one side. So, we used to be sitting on these broken moodhas supposedly studying…we were five, six years old and I remember feeling so miserable. I remember seeing a similar kind of tree, the friendly bear tree, far in the distance near a lake. The tree reminded me of home.

Prava Rai is an editor and teacher, and the founder of the DG Reading Room Research and Education Foundation at Dumigaon, South Sikkim.