Can you see that chikoo tree there? It has always been part of my life. As a child, I would climb the tree and pluck ripe chikoos. If you climb the chikoo tree, you can climb onto the roof tiles from the tree. I have even read books up there. As a child, my people wouldn’t let me read, they would force me to study, do my lessons. So I would read novels sitting on the roof, by climbing up the tree. Actually, I never felt it was a tree. I felt it was like an extension of my life-body. Just like our bed, our room, our kitchen … that’s our tree. But to talk to a tree, that never struck me. But I occasionally saw our workers talking to the tree and also my mother…my mother loved trees very much, she grew a large vegetable garden. Unfortunately, though I wanted to, I could not grow many trees. But we have quite a few. The big one here is Chafo, Champa in Hindi. That yellow coloured chafo, I don’t know what they call it in English, in Konkani it is called naagchafo or some call it sonchafo which is Marathi. The tall tree gets small yellow flowers called naagchafim. You get them in Margao, near Pimpalpedd. The women stand with puddi or plaited flowers, which have a nice fragrance. We didn’t have that until recently. I got that and planted it. Now we have Mango, Chafo, jackfruit, breadfruit, cashew, all in our orchard.

I will tell you of the earliest memory of my childhood. On the way to our school there was a jagom tree. Boys would climb up and pluck jagoms. I would go to a private class to study. It was the house of Domingo Laurente, who taught us Portuguese. In the evening I would go to his house while in the mornings to the aula, the Portuguese primary school. Some boys had climbed up the tree and I, too, wanted to climb up. There was a branch at about two meters height. Below that there was only the trunk, no branches. I straddled the tree trunk and climbed up and sat on that branch. I was scared to climb any higher, I had no confidence. A chikoo tree is friendly, close to home; I was used to the chikoo. I was not used to the jagom tree. So I was half way up on the tree and all the boys collected the jagoms and gave me. I could not pluck them, I was afraid to stretch out. When we were finished, I could not climb down. All the other boys were climbing down and jumping off. I was scared to jump down that two metre drop. I was about eight years old. Then my older cousin helped me climb onto his shoulders and jump down. That is one experience I cannot forget. Even later the boys would tease me about it ― that I know how to climb up, but don’t know how to get down.

Then, there was a banyan tree in the backyard. Its roots would hang down. We would tie up two roots in a knot and that became our swing. There’s a bibo tree back there. I liked to go and look at the bibo tree, but my folks at home would always scare me – “Don’t go near the bibo tree, your skin will break, you will get scabs”. The bibo tree is very warm (it radiates heat), if you go near it your skin gets rashes and sores. I was always curious to know more about the bibo. I would look at the birds sitting on the bibo and think –“Arre, if birds can sit on its branches, why can’t I go near it?” And that appeared in my story ‘Moronn Yena Mhunnun’.

There was a mango tree in our porsum, the kitchen garden. It grew tall, but wasn’t bearing any mangoes. Then I recall, I think it was on a new moon night, my mother took me to the washroom near the well, and made me take off all my clothes. I was completely naked. I was seven years old. She placed a stick in my hand and told me: ‘Go and hit that mango tree four times and tell it that if it doesn’t give mangoes next year, it will be cut down.’ So, I went to the tree and hit it with the stick four-five times. There was the belief that if the tree does not listen to requests, then it had to be threatened. That was the first time I realised we could talk to trees—tell them, force them, threaten them, and that too has appeared in my story ‘Ambo Mhugelo’.

Some tree memories rise to my mind very strongly. We had a small property near the convent. There was a coconut tree there. It was abnormal. A coconut tree is usually just one trunk, isn’t it? This tree had a branch at about two metres height. So it had two crowns, but one root. Then one day Chandrakant Keni, the writer and journalist, stopped his car and stepped out to admire the tree. That’s when I realised this was like a miracle. You don’t see such trees. But Chandrakant Keni noted this tree and later mentioned it to others many times, turning to me saying ‘it’s true, isn’t it?’

In the stories of other Konkani writers, you may find mention of the peepal tree. But in my stories you will find not the peepal tree, but the banyan tree. There will be the banyan tree, the mango tree, coconut trees, but the peepal tree will not be there. Because I did not see the peepal tree around as I was growing up.

My most popular story was Bhurgim Mhugelim Tim (These Are My Children). Let me tell you how I got the seed of the story: I was in hospital. I had suffered my first heart attack. I was about forty-eight years then. I was in the ICU, then they shifted me to the room. The doctor had told me not to talk too much. My wife would sit by my side. In a few days a friend came to see me―Amancio. “Today I saw such a thing…” he began telling me. My wife told him to talk, for me to be quiet. “I had gone to a village with a land acquisition notice,” he continued. “Assucena’s Mai, a village woman has grown coconut trees there, and she says don’t cut the trees, they are my children, she says!” He just told me this much. I called out to my wife and said, Shaila, take some paper and pen, and write what I say. ‘Assuscena’s mother says don’t cut the trees, these are my children she says, just write this much.’ And I forgot all about this. Then one day as I was sorting out all the receipts and prescriptions and bills, I found this piece of paper. “Assuscena’s mother … says don’t cut the trees, these are my children, she says”. I asked my wife, what is this written here? She said you have written this. I said this handwriting is yours. She tried to recall, and then told me of the visitor at the hospital and I immediately remembered it. I tell you, generally when I get an idea for a story, I write it down quickly or I forget it. But the moment my wife told me about this, the idea appealed to me so much that I quickly wrote out the story within the next two days. The concept of the story—to grow trees in the names of children—didn’t feel new to me, but for my readers it was something new. Sometimes if a child was born after many years, they would plant a tree after that child, or if some good person died, they would grow a tree in his name. I had seen this, it was deeply rooted in my mind, and suddenly it came out.

As a creative writer, I never felt trees to be different entity or were outsiders, they are always inside us. I have a story ‘Miguelichim Ghorchim’ (Miguel’s Kin), which was translated into English and won the Katha award. One day I was sitting in the house doing something. Just then as I looked out the window, I saw a boy climbing up one of my coconut trees. The boy was young, about 14-15 years old. I got angry with the boy, I thought he was plucking coconuts. I ran to him. On seeing me he got so nervous, he began to jump down. I shouted to him, ‘Don’t jump, climb down slowly!’ He clambered down, scraped himself a bit. I scolded him – ‘You are a school going boy, don’t you feel ashamed to steal coconuts?’‘Sorry sir,’ he said. ‘What sorry?’ I said, ‘have they taught you this at home?’‘No, not to steal coconuts,’ he said, ‘A cuckoo has hatched eggs at the top, I wanted to take the chicks.’ When I looked up I saw the tree had no crown. The tree had died, but when a tree dies, in the hollow of its top, a cuckoo makes a nest and lays its eggs there. Then it dawned on me that the boy was picking up the hatchlings. Then I said, ‘Look, I will take you to my house and lock you up in a cage. Then think of how your father and mother will feel.’ He got nervous. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘these cuckoo chicks must grow up, learn to fly, and then the joy that we will get when we see them flying around, that joy you will not see in a cage.’ With this dose of scolding I sent him off. But that prompted me to write the story Miguel’s Kin. That is how the trees and incidents related to trees have inspired me to write.

A cuckoo often calls out to me. Whenever the cuckoo coos… there’s a mango tree near the house, I always sit here to write where a table is placed. When I sit there, the cuckoo coos and I would always feel she loves me. She calls me ‘Ghovou’ … ghov means husband in Konkani. So when she says ‘ghovou…’ I feel she is calling to me and saying, what’s the matter, why are you sitting quietly, write something! And even now, when the cuckoo calls, I begin to write.

One afternoon, I had returned from college on summer vacation. It was the month of May, very hot. I heard the sound of the cuckoo. Suddenly the heat was so intense, even the breeze was hot, I immediately took up the pen, I didn’t know what I would write, I had nothing in mind, so I just began with – “It’s a hot day, the month of Vaishakh has just ended, there is no rain…” If you have read the story you will come to know, the entire first para is about the dryness, no rain … a snake appeared in my thought. The snake is crawling on the sand. The sand is very hot. I went on, I did not know how it was going to end, I had not thought of anything, and the snake becomes the protagonist of the story. It goes on and on, she has her young ones, also crawling by her side. When they are trying to climb up the bandh, the young ones cannot climb and die. The snake cries, ‘What is the use of my life, why should I live!’ All the trees are dead, except for one bibo tree (the bibo of my childhood appeared there). The bibo talks with the snake, ‘No, you should not let yourself die. All my fellow trees have died. But I live, waiting for death to come. Until death comes to you, it’s your duty to live.’ The snake says, ‘There’s no water, my mate is dead, my children are dead, all the people have gone.’ The tree says, ‘Go in that direction, you will find a lake there.’ She agrees and starts moving off. The tree says, ‘Wait, will you oblige me? Please climb over my body. It has been so many days without birds. Nobody has come my way. Just crawl over my trunk and branches.’ So, the snake climbs up the tree and moves all over the branches and comes down. This water snake and the tree – this dialogue took the story to a different level. This relationship between animals and trees, man and trees has always inspired me. I never felt trees were doing something out of the way, because they are always insiders, inside us.

Damodar Mauzo is a short story writer, novelist, critic and script writer. He was awarded the 57th Jnanpith Award in 2022, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his novel Karmelin and the Vimala V. Pai Vishwa Konkani Sahitya Puraskar award for his novel Tsunami Simon in 2011. His collection of short stories Teresa’s Man and Other Stories from Goa was nominated for the Frank O’Connor International award in 2015.