The big tree across the street has leaves that hang from the twigs and flutter like flags in the gentlest breeze. I know that it's a Peepal, the kind of tree Buddha sat under when he received enlightenment.
The enormous tree in the neighbor's yard that sheds drifts of yellow scythe-shaped leaves in spring is a neem tree. Some multi-national corporation is trying to patent neem oil, which has caused outrage here; for centuries, Indian farmers have used the tree and its products as medicine, fertilizer, and insect repellant.
The ragged leaf plant Parthenium flourishes along the wall of the golf course where I take my evening walks. It irritates people allergic to it. Local legend claims that seeds for this plant first arrived as stowaways in bags of wheat sent by the United States in the 1950s. That might just be legend, though it was unknown until then, and now can be seen on every roadside in India.
The handsome, tall plant closer to the wall is Cannabis, but no one seems to be irritated by it. None of the elite golfers who see the weed every day rant that it should be destroyed, and no one bothers to harvest it—except the occasional pahari, who may collect the dry seeds to make chutney—a very tasty traditional dish that should be eaten in moderation lest you want to fall to the floor in instant oblivion.
The point I want to demonstrate is this: I can identify a lot of things in the world around me. But when it comes to identifying the major issues of life I—like many people—usually can't see the forest for the trees.
The forest seemed thickest when I was younger. Like many women, I had the job, the husband, the kids. Every day I faced a forest of tasks: interview to be done for one of my newspaper columns; tomorrow's articles to be corrected, today's page made, next week's reviews—where were they? What about the book my daughter needed? The new school socks? The torn drapes in the living room? Take the dog to the vet. Dinner for eight tomorrow—can I get away with apple kuchen again, or have I served them that before?
My life didn't even feel like a forest, it was more like a primordial soup of demands on my time through which I was forever swimming. Of course, I always had priorities—everybody thinks they do. My children's welfare topped the list. Next came my commitment to work—doing it well and doing good through it. Third on the list was learning, followed by friendships and volunteering. Priorities hovered in the back of my mind, I'm sure, but I don't think I succeeded in identifying at which point the need to make up the paper's page four interfered with the need for a mother's presence for a child. I couldn't identify and demand only the kind of writing that would be useful to the public—I was too busy filling pages. Identifying the essentials was a real problem for me.
Maybe my mind was too linear, and young women today may have learned to jog their attention out of the daily rut and put inessential tasks in their place. I hope so.
I was taught to think straight, and told that every problem could be worked out by logic and application. That said, it meant that every problem should be worked out. Any situation left unresolved, any task left undone, would not be resolved because the problem obviously wasn't worth the effort. The reason would be laziness or stupidity.
For example, if my editor, on his way out the door to dinner and evening TV serials, told me to check the big local crime story that was going on page one, I'd give it a lot of attention. On those occasions when the reporter didn't finish the story until ten minutes before I was to go home, I'd usually find buried facts and bad writing.
Instead of throwing the bad writing back at the reporters with insults as so many of the men lacking patience in the office often did, I decided to invest time in teaching the reporter how to improve the writing. My ego whispered that if I didn't do this, no one else would. A feminist element motivated me as well—I needed to prove that the women on the staff, still a tiny minority, could get better results than the men.
Did I realize at that moment that whatever was written in that report might as well have been written on water? Even a week later, who would remember or care how a particular story was written in a local newspaper? Did I wonder whether, during the hour I worked on it, my kids were arguing with their grandmother about the presence of a cat on the dinner table—that things might be said that would bother her for years? Did I wonder whether my husband might have to deal with unexpected visitors on his own, losing time he needed to work on a case that would impact many lives? Did I wonder whether I might have better spent that time forcing myself to write something deeper—or even reading a great book? Did I think at that moment my children's ayah might have discovered a lump in her breast, and, in the absence of anyone to talk it over with, gone to a quack who told her it could be cured with his prescribed sugar pills rather than surgery?
I thought of none of these. I solved the problem in front of me; I rewrote the story; I dealt with the tree that blocked my way, and didn't even look around at the forest. I hope today that everyone is better than I was at walking through the trees.
BIO: LUCINDA NELSON DHAVAN first went to India on a Fulbright Foundation grant immediately after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College. She is still there. After several years devoted to domestic bliss, child rearing, and learning Hindi, she joined the staff of a regional newspaper. She now feels she may have learned enough to write fiction and is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel. Contact Lucinda at: ldhavan@yahoo.co.in.