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B.A English Literature
3rd Year 6th Semester
Elective Paper
GREEN STUDIES (AG46D)
Unit 2:
Bioregionalism( Community, Region, Home) and Ecofeminism
2.3. “Flowering Tree” by A.K Ramanujan
Text :
In a certain town, the king had
two daughters and a son. The older daughter was married.
In the same town, there lived an
old woman with her two daughters. She did menial jobs to feed and clothe and
bring up her children. When the girls reached puberty, the younger sister said
one day, “Sister, I've been thinking of something. It's hard on mother to work
all day for our sakes. I want to help her. I will turn myself into a flowering
tree. You can take the flowers and sell them for good money.”
Amazed, the older sister asked,
“How will you turn into a flowering tree?”
“I'll explain later. You first
sweep and wash the entire house. Then take a bath, go to the well, and bring
two pitchers full of water,” said the younger sister.
The older sister listened to her
carefully, swept and wiped and cleaned, took a bath, and brought two pitchers
of water without touching them with her fingernails.
Right in front of their house
stood a tall tree. The sister swept and wiped the ground under it too. Both
girls then went there, and the younger one said, “Sister, I'll sit under this
tree and meditate. Then you pour the water from this pitcher all over my body.
I'll turn into a flowering tree. Then you pluck as many flowers as you want,
but do it without breaking a sprout or tearing a leaf. When you're done, pour
the water from the other pitcher over me, and I'll become a person again.”
The younger sister sat down and
thought of the Lord. The older one poured water from the first pitcher all over
her sister. At once, her sister changed into a beautiful tree that seemed to
have a flower next to every leaf. The older sister plucked the flowers
carefully, without hurting a stalk or sprout or leaf. After she had enough to
fill a basket or two, she emptied the second pitcher of water over the tree—and
the tree became a human being again, and the younger sister stood in its place.
She shook the water from her hair and stood up. They both gathered the flowers
in baskets and brought them home. The flowers had a wonderful fragrance. They
wove them into garlands.
“Where shall I sell them?” asked
the elder sister.
“Sister, why not take all of them
to the king's palace? They will pay well. Mother is always doing such awful
jobs for our sake. Let's pile up some money and surprise her,” said the younger
one.
So the older sister took the
basketful of garlands before the king's palace and hawked her wares, crying,
“Flowers, flowers, who wants flowers?”
The princess looked out and said,
“Mother, Mother, the flowers smell wonderful. Buy me some”.
“All right, call the flower
girl,” said the queen. They both looked at the flowers, and they were lovely.
The queen asked, “How much do you want for these?”
“We are poor people, give us
whatever you wish,” said the older sister. They gave her a handful of coins and
bought all the garlands.
When the older sister came home
with the money, the younger one said, “Sister, Sister, don't tell mother. Hide
it. Don't tell anyone.”
They sold flowers like this for
five days, and they had five handfuls of coins.
“Shall we show these to Mother?”
asked one.
“No, no, she'll get angry and
beat us,” said the other. The two girls were eager to make money.
One day the king's son saw the
flowers. They smelled wonderful. He had never seen such flowers anywhere. “What
flowers are these? Where do they grow, on what kind of tree? Who brings them to
the palace?” he wondered. He watched the girl who brought the flowers; one day
he followed her home to the old woman's house, but he couldn't find a single
flowering tree anywhere. He was quite intrigued. On his way home he tired
himself out thinking, “Where on earth do they get such flowers?”
Early the next morning, while it
was still dark, the king's son went and hid himself in the tall tree in front
of the old woman's house. That day too, the girls swept and washed the space
under the tree. As usual, the younger girl became the flowering tree, and after
the older one had gently plucked all the flowers, the tree became the young
woman again. The prince saw all this happen before his very eyes.
He came straight home, and lay on
his bed, face down. His father and mother came to find out what the matter was.
He didn't speak a word. The minister's son, his friend, came and asked him,
“What happened? Did anyone say anything that hurt you? What do you want? You
can tell me.”
Then the prince told him, bit by
bit, about the girl turning into a flowering tree. “Is that all?” asked the
minister's son, and reported it all to the king. The king called the minister,
and sent for the old woman. She arrived, shaking with fear. She was dressed in
old clothes and stood near the door. After much persuasion, she sat down. The
king calmed her, and softly asked her, “You have two girls at your place. Will
you give us one?”
The old woman's fear got worse.
“How does the king know about my daughters?” she thought. She found her voice
with difficulty and stammered: “All right, master. For a poor woman like me,
giving a daughter is not as great a thing as your asking for one, is it?”
The king at once offered her
betel leaf and betel nut (tambula) ceremonially on a silver platter, as a
symbolic offer of betrothal. She was afraid to touch it. But the king forced it
on her and sent her home.
Back home, she picked up a broom
and beat her daughters. She scolded them: “You bitches, where have you been?
The king is asking after you. Where did you go?”
The poor girls didn't understand
what was happening. They stood there crying, “ Amma, why are you beating us?
Why are you scolding us?”
“Who else can I beat? Where did
you go? How did the king hear about you?”
The old woman raged on. The
terrified girls slowly confessed to what they had been doing—told her how the
younger girl would turn into a flowering tree, how they would sell the flowers,
and hoard the money, hoping to surprise their mother. They showed her their
five handfuls of coins.
“How can you do such things, with
an elder like me sitting in the house? What's all this talk about human beings becoming
trees? Who's ever heard of it? Telling lies, too. Show me how you become a
tree.”
She screamed and beat them some
more. Finally, to pacify her, the younger sister had to demonstrate it all. She
became a tree and then returned to her normal human self, right before her
mother's eyes.
Next day, the king's men came to
the old woman's house and asked her to appear before the king. The old woman
went and said, “Your Highness, what do you want of me?”
The king answered, “Tell us when
we should set the date for the wedding.”
“What can I say, Your Highness?
We'll do as you wish,” the old woman said, secretly glad by now.
The wedding arrangements began.
The family made ritual designs on the wedding floor as large as the sky, and
built a canopied ceremonial tent (pandal) as large as the earth. All the
relatives arrived. At an auspicious moment, the girl who knew how to become a
flowering tree was given in marriage to the prince.
After the nuptial ceremony, the
families left the couple alone together in a separate house. But he was aloof,
and so was she. Two nights passed. “Let him talk to me,” thought she. “Let her
begin,” thought he. So both groom and bride were silent.
On the third night, the girl
wondered, “He hasn't uttered a word, why did he marry me?” She asked him aloud,
“Is it for this bliss you married me?”
He answered roughly, “I'll talk
to you only if you do what I ask.”
“Won't I do as my husband bids
me? Tell me what you want.”
“You know how to turn into a
flowering tree, don't you? Let me see you do it. We can then sleep on flowers
and cover ourselves with them. That would be lovely,” he said.
“My lord, I'm not a demon, I'm
not a goddess. I'm an ordinary mortal like everyone else. Can a human being
ever become a tree?” she said very humbly.
“I don't like all this lying and
cheating. I saw you the other day becoming a beautiful tree. I saw you with my
own eyes. If you don't become a tree for me, for whom will you do that?” he
chided her.
The bride wiped a tear from her
eyes with the end of her sari, and said, “Don't be angry with me. If you insist
so much, I'll do as you say. Bring two pitchers of water.”
He brought them. She uttered
chants over them. Meanwhile, he shut all the doors and all the windows. She
said, “Remember, pluck all the flowers you want, but take care not to break a
twig or tear a leaf.”
Then she instructed him on how
and when to pour the water, while she sat in the middle of the room, meditating
on God. The prince poured one pitcherful of water over her. She turned into a
flowering tree. The fragrance of the flowers filled the house. He plucked all
the flowers he wanted and then sprinkled water from the second pitcher all over
the tree. It became his bride again. She shook her tresses and stood up
smiling.
They spread the flowers, covered
themselves with them, and went to bed. They did this again and again for
several days. Every morning the couple threw out all the withered flowers from
their window. The heap of flowers lay there like a hill.
The king's younger daughter saw
the heap of withered flowers one day and said to the queen, “Look, Mother,
Brother and Sister-in-law wear and throw away a whole lot of flowers. The
flowers they've thrown away are piled up like a hill. And they haven't given me
even one.”
The queen consoled her: “Don't be
upset. We'll get them to give you some.”
One day the prince had gone out
somewhere. Then the king's daughter (who had meanwhile spied and discovered the
secret of the flowers) called all her friends and said, “Let's go to the swings
in the surahonne orchard. We'll take my sister-in-law; she'll turn into a
flowering tree. If you all come, I'll give you flowers that smell wonderful.”
Then she asked her mother's
permission. The queen said, “Of course, do go. Who will say no to such things?”
The daughter then said, “But I
can't go alone. Send Sister-in-law.”
“Then get your brother's
permission and take her.”
The prince came there just then
and his sister asked him, “Brother, Brother! We're all going to the surahonne
orchard to play on the swings. Send Sister-in-law.”
“It's not my wish that's
important. Everything depends on Mother,” he answered.
So she went back to the queen and
complained, “Mother, if I ask Brother, he sends me to you. But you don't really
want to send her. So you are giving me excuses. Is your daughter-in-law more
important than your daughter?”
The queen rebuked her, saying,
“Don't be rude. All right, take your sister-in-law with you. Take care of her
and bring her back safely by evening.”
Reluctantly, the queen sent her
daughter-in-law with the girls.
Everyone went to the surahonne
orchard. They tied their swings to a big tree. Everyone was playing on the
swings merrily. Abruptly, the king's daughter stopped all the games, brought
everyone down from the swings, and accosted her brother's wife.
“Sister-in-law, you can become a
flowering tree, can't you? Look, no one here has any flowers for their hair.”
The sister-in-law replied
angrily, “Who told you such nonsense? Am I not another human being like you?
Don't talk such crazy stuff.”
The king's daughter taunted her,
“Oho, I know all about you. My friends have no flowers to wear. I ask my
sister-in-law to become a tree and give us some flowers, and look how coy she
acts. You don't want to become a tree for us. Do you do that only for your
lovers?”
“Che, you're awful. My coming
here was a mistake,” said the sister-in-law sadly, and she agreed to become a
tree.
She sent for two pitchers of
water, uttered chants over them, instructed the girls on how and when to pour
the water, and sat down to meditate. The silly girls didn't listen carefully.
They poured the water on her indifferently, here and there. She turned into a
tree, but only half a tree.
It was already evening, and it
began to rain, with thunder and lightning. In their greed to get the flowers,
they tore up the sprouts and broke the branches. They were in a hurry to get
home. So they poured the second pitcher of water at random and ran away. When
the princess changed from a tree to a person again, she had no hands and feet.
She had only half a body. She was a wounded carcass.
Somehow in that flurry of
rainwater, she crawled and floated into a gutter. There she got stuck in a
turning, a long way off from home.
Next morning, seven or eight cotton
wagons were coming that way and a driver spotted a half-human thing groaning in
the gutter. The first cart driver said, “See what that noise is about.”
The second one said, “Hey, let's
get going. It may be the wind, or it may be some ghost, who knows?”
But the last cart driver stopped
his cart and took a look. There lay a shapeless mass, a body. Only the face was
a beautiful woman's face. She wasn't wearing a thing.
“Ayyo, some poor woman,” he said
in sorrow, and threw his turban cloth over her, and carried her to his cart,
paying no heed to the dirty banter of his fellows. Soon they came to a town.
They stopped their carts there and lowered this “thing” onto a ruined pavilion.
Before they drove on, the cart driver said, “Somebody may find you and feed you.
You will survive.” Then they drove on.
• • •
When the king's daughter came
home alone, the queen asked her, “Where's your sister-in-law? What will your
brother say?”
The girl answered casually, “Who
knows? Didn't we all find our own way home? Who knows where she went?”
The queen panicked and tried to
get the facts out of the girl. “ Ayyo! You can't say such things. Your brother
will be angry. Tell me what happened.”
The girl said whatever came to
her head. The queen found out nothing. She had a suspicion that her daughter
had done something foolish. After waiting several hours, the prince talked to
his mother.
“Amma, Amma.”
“What is it, son?”
“What has happened to my wife?
She went to the orchard to play on the swings, and never came back.”
“O Rama, I thought she was in
your bedroom all this time. Now you're asking me!”
“Oh, something terrible has
happened to her,” thought the prince. He went and lay down in grief. Five days
passed, six days passed, fifteen days passed, but there was no news of his wife.
They couldn't find her anywhere.
“Did the stupid girls push her
into a tank? Did they throw her into a well? My sister never liked her. What
did the foolish girls do?” He asked his parents, also the servants. What could
they say? They, too, were worried and full of fear. In disgust and despair, he
changed into an ascetic's long robe and went out into the world. He just walked
and walked, not caring where he went.
• • •
Meanwhile, the girl who was now a
“thing” somehow reached the town into which her husband's elder sister had been
given in marriage. Every time the palace servants and maids passed that way to
fetch water, they used to see her. They would say to each other, “She glows
like a king's daughter.” Then one of them couldn't stand it any longer and
decided to tell the queen.
“Amma, Amma, she looks very much
like your younger brother's wife. Look through the seeing-glass and see for
yourself.”
The queen looked and the face did
seem strangely familiar. One of the maids suggested, “ Amma, can I bring her to
the palace. Shall I?”
The queen pooh-poohed the idea:
“We'll have to serve her and feed her. Forget it.”
Again the next day the maids
mumbled and moaned, “She's very lovely. She'll be like a lamp in the palace.
Can't we bring her here?”
“All right, all right, bring her
if you wish. But you'll have to take care of her without neglecting palace
work,” ordered the queen.
They agreed and brought the
“thing” to the palace. They bathed her in oils, dressed her well, and sat her
down at the palace door. Every day they applied medicines to her wounds and
made her well. But they could not make her whole. She had only half a body.
Now the prince wandered through
many lands and ended up outside the gate of his sister's palace. He looked like
a crazy man. His beard and whiskers were wild. When the maids were fetching and
carrying water they saw him, then went back to the queen in the palace and
said, “ Amma, someone is sitting outside the gate, and he looks very much like
your brother. Look through the seeing-glass and see.”
Grumbling indifferently, the
queen went to the terrace and looked through the seeing-glass. She was
surprised. “Yes, he does look remarkably like my brother. What's happened to
him? Has he become a wandering ascetic? Impossible,” she thought.
She sent her maids down to bring
him in. They said to him, “The queen wants to see you.”
He brushed them aside. “Why would
she want to see me?” he growled.
“No, sir, she really wants to see
you, please come,” they insisted and finally persuaded him to come in. The
queen took a good look at him and knew it was really her brother.
She ordered the palace servants
to heat up whole vats of oil and great vessels of steaming water for his baths.
She served him and nursed him, for she knew he was her brother. She served new
kinds of dinner each day, and brought him new styles of clothing. But whatever
she did, he didn't speak a word to his elder sister. He didn't even ask, “Who
are you? Where am I?” By this time, they both knew they were brother and
sister.
The queen wondered, “Why doesn't
he talk to me though I treat him so royally? What could be the reason? Could it
be some witch's or demon's magic?”
After some days, she started
sending one or another of her beautiful maids into his bedroom every night. She
sent seven maids in seven days. The maids held his hands and caressed his body
and tried to rouse him from his stupor. But he didn't say a word or do a thing.
Finally the servant maids got
together and dressed up the “thing” that sat at the palace door. With the
permission of the disgusted queen, they left “It” on his bed. He neither looked
up nor said anything. But this night, “It” pressed and massaged his legs with
its stump of an arm. “It” moaned strangely. He got up once and looked at “It.”
“It” was sitting at his feet. He stared at “It” for a few moments and then
realized “It” was really his lost wife. Then he asked her what had happened.
She who had had no language all these months suddenly broke into words. She
told him whose daughter she was, whose wife, and what had happened to her.
“What shall we do now?” he asked.
“Nothing much. We can only try.
Bring two pitchers of water, without touching them with your fingernails,” she
replied.
That night he brought her two
pitchers of water without anyone's knowledge. She uttered chants over them and
instructed him: “Pour the water from this pitcher over me, I'll become a tree.
Wherever there is a broken branch, set it right. Wherever a leaf is torn, put
it together. Then pour the water of the second pitcher.”
Then she sat down and meditated.
He poured the water on her from
the first pitcher. She became a tree. But the branches had been broken, the
leaves had been torn. He carefully set each one right and bound them up and
gently poured water from the second pitcher all over the tree.
Now she became a whole human
being again. She stood up, shaking the water from her hair, and fell at her
husband's feet.
Then she went and woke up the
queen, her sister-in-law, and touched her feet also. She told the astonished queen
the whole story. The queen wept and embraced her. Then she treated the couple
to all kinds of princely food and service, and had them sit in the hall like
bride and bridegroom for a ritual celebration called hasé. She kept them in her
palace for several weeks and then sent them home to her father's palace with
cartloads of gifts.
The king was overjoyed at the
return of his long-lost son and daughter-in-law. He met them at the city gates,
then took them home on an elephant howdah in a grand ceremonial procession
through the city streets. In the palace, they told the king and the queen
everything that had happened. Then the king had seven barrels of burning lime
poured into a great pit and threw his youngest daughter into it. All the people
who saw it said to themselves, “After all, every wrong has its punishment.”
Summary:
Once there was a girl who could turn into a tree. She would have her younger sister pour a pot of water over her, and she would turn into a tree. Her younger sister would gently pick the flowers that would grow from the branches of the tree. She was very careful to not break any of the branches. Then, to turn her older sister back into a human, she would pour another pot of water over her. The sisters did this a number of times. They would take the flowers to the market, and sell them. With the money, they would buy vegetables. They would bring these vegetables home for their mother to cook. Their family was very poor.
After some days, the mother said to her daughters, "I appreciate you bringing the vegetables, but where are you getting the money for this? Are you stealing the money?" The older daughter replied, "Mother, I am afraid to tell you how we are getting the money, because I am afraid you might not believe me." The mother said, "Please just tell me." The older daughter said, "Well, I can turn into a tree, and when I do, flowers grow from my branches." The mother said, "Stop telling lies!" The older daughter said, "Come out to the yard, and I will show you." So they went outside. Water was poured over the older sister, and indeed she turned into a flowering tree. The mother was amazed! So everyday the girls would go to the market to sell the flowers.
The family began to get a little extra money, enough to have their house re-painted. Some of their neighbours started to ask, "Where are these people getting all of this money?" Nearby, there was a prince who lived in a palace. Even he heard about this family that had suddenly become wealthy. He came to investigate. He hid behind a tree, and saw the older sister turn into a tree, and the younger sister pick the flowers. The prince went back to the palace, and said to the king, “Father, I have found the girl I want to marry. She lives in a nearby village. "The king said, "My son, you can’t marry such a girl. You are royalty, and she is a commoner. "But the prince said, "Father, my mind is made up. I want to marry that girl. She has wonderful abilities. "So the wedding occurred. That night, when the prince and his new wife tried to go to sleep, they found their mattress was very hard.
So the prince said, "My wife, why don't you become a tree, and I will pick your flowers, and we can sleep on the flowers." They did what he suggested. In the morning they threw the flowers out the window. They did this same thing for a number of days, and eventually a huge pile of flowers developed outside their window. The prince had two sisters -- one younger than him (she was not even ten years old), and one older than him. His younger sister asked him, "Brother, why are there so many flowers outside your window?"
The prince told her. And she asked him, "Could you have your wife come down to the garden where I play with my friends, and have her show us how she can turn into a tree and make flowers?" The prince asked his wife to do this. The wife was afraid to turn into a tree in public, but she finally agreed. When the wife turned into a tree in the garden, the young children started fighting over the flowers that grew from her branches. The children struggled and grabbed and fought, and many of the trees branches were broken. Just then, it began to rain, and all of the children went running home.
The rainwater turned the wife back into a human, but because of the damage that had been done to her branches, she was missing both her arms and both her legs. So she fell onto the ground. She tried to roll home, but in the rain she rolled into a ditch, and from there she could not help but roll part way down the side of a mountain. That night, the prince asked his younger sister, "Where's my wife?" The younger sister answered, "I don't know. When it started raining, we all came home. "But the wife did not come home that night. She did not come home the next day, or the next.
They searched for her, but they could not find her. Her husband became very sad. He stopped brushing his teeth. He stopped combing his hair. He stopped washing. He stopped shaving. He stopped cutting his hair and fingernails. He came to look like a wild animal. Finally, he just wandered off into the forest. After some time, his wife managed to roll back up the mountainside. Then she rolled to the home of her husband's older sister. This older sister looked out her window and saw the living lump of flesh laying on the side of the road. She saw it was a woman, and she thought, "That woman looks familiar. Could she be my younger brother's wife?" So the prince's older sister had her husband's wife brought into the house, and bathed. The wife was put in new clothes, placed in a bed, and given food and drink. But the wife was very weak: she could not even speak.
After some days, the prince also appeared outside his older sister's house. Again, the older sister looked out her window and saw a person down there, and thought, "This person looks familiar." She could not see his face, because his hair was covering it. But she looked and looked, and thought, "Could this person be my younger brother?" She had the man brought into the house. He could not speak, but when his hair was parted, she saw that this indeed was her younger brother. She had him bathed, clothed, and fed. Then he was brought into the room in which his wife lay in bed. Neither of them could speak, but when they saw each other, each of them smiled.
After two days, the wife regained her ability to speak. She said, "Dear husband, please pour water on me. I will become a tree again. While I am a tree, please fix my broken branches as best you can. Then pour water on me again." The prince did this. You know, when branches have been broken, they can not be un-broken. But they can be straightened and neatened. The prince did what he could. After he poured water on her to make her become human again, he was delighted to see that when she regained her human form, she once again had both her arms, and both her legs. Now husband and wife were strong enough to speak once more, and they told each other how happy they were to be together again. And they lived happily ever after.
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