The Swing Under the Gulmohar Tree

The Swing Under the Gulmohar Tree.

Outside, under the old Gulmohar tree in the garden of my family's summer home in Kodaikanal hangs a swing. It consists of a weathered plank of wood tied to two long, thick jute ropes. The ropes are thicker than my wrist and have been there for as long as the swing has. The swing itself, to me, has been there forever. The plank of wood is from a tree of species I could not identify. It may be birch, rosewood, coconut or pine, but I can not care less, I had never been a great botanist, even as a hobbyist. But the interest that I lacked in botany, I well made up for in my love for history: for all the information about seasons, cloud patterns and even the lack of copulating bees a botanist would be able to distill from the cracks and holes on the wood, I squeezed out tales of heroism, bravery and even stoic inaction. The plank could have been from a pirate ship: seen countless battles and seas and bloody clashes on the high seas. Or it could just have been a floor board in the ball room of a European nobleman, staring up year after year as nobility danced, flirted and courted for twenty generations. Or it could just have been the under board of a drawer, staring into darkness and never ending solitude for about the same time. I never cared to find out. The truth is nearly always never romantic. I was happy with the lies I spun up.

Every year, my family would drive up the hill for a month long vacation at Kodaikanal, the hill station in the Nilgiris. My grandfather had bought and developed the estate sixty years ago, after he made some money captaining a merchant ship for the English. He had decided to settle down in the estate sold to him by his English comrade when all the British had left back by the ship-fulls to mainland Britain.

I am now thirty, but the swing can not be more that thirty years older than me, however it is definitely older and much wiser than I am. I know this better that anyone as I was the only one who would brave the cold temperatures at night and sacrifice other valuable sunny day time hours with family as they played board games and took long walks around the lake, just to be with it. Hours during the summer would be filled with my bottom warming that ancient plank.

I had learned later in school, quite interestingly, that the longer the rope connecting an oscillating mass the slower the mass would oscillate to and fro. I didn't know it was physics, I always thought the swing resembled old wise men, like my grandfather. The characteristics of whom were to talk slowly and calmly as if there was not a thing on earth that existed anymore that could startle them into over-reactionary actions, like often does happen to my mother. I used to be fascinated: how much ever I pushed, tugged, pulled, jumped or pleaded it never changed the pace of its deathly-slow hallucination-inducing trace under the Gulmohar tree. The pace has had and still has this effect upon me, which my younger self mistook for the imparting of age old knowledge upon himself by the swing. The trance that it put me in when I was young, made me imagine that the swing used to be sat upon by colonial English maidens wearing yellow frilled gowns and large laced and ribboned bonnets, giggling and laughing coyly with each other, when my grandfather was not around. At other times I had dreamed of pirates, princes, pilots and even presidents who came to this oscillating seat to ease themselves of their troubles. I used to take pride in thinking that at all times they wished to do so, they did it with the permission of my grandfather and that later, one day, when I inherit the estate, like my grandfather encouraged me think so, they would ask my permission too. That view naturally changed as I grew older, fortunately: I started to see the swing as more of a shared piece of garden paraphernalia without it did not losing its charm. Whenever I wanted to sit on it, it was always vacant, and I was always in its full attention, so I did not mind if others or others' ghosts shared it with me.

The swing meant more to me than any other piece of furniture, wall or floor tile in my house at Madras or in the house at Kodaikanal. It resembled my childhood and reminded me of my roots always. This was ever since I had started to feel one with it, and feel its philosophy. Every year, for the remaining eleven months I would collect experiences, anecdotes and memories just to repeat it to myself and the swing in the pleasant month of May. It would listen softly slowly and patiently, just like my grandfather while sitting at the head of the table smoking his pipe every noght at dinner. The swing would impart what it knew to me in a slow trickle, just like my grandfather again, which at first would not seem like it would affect you, but the after taste of which was always powerful, earthy and overwhelming.

Often times the simplest philosophies are the strongest ones and it was the same in this case too. The swing imparted its philosophy: oscillate at your own frequency, others will automatically follow. The power lies in the frequency. It will invoke them to oscillate at theirs and if the frequencies matched they would, again using a word I learned at physics class, make them resonate. This phenomenon of resonance has the uncanny ability to make the other body shake and react more violently and fervently than they ever would have alone. Angelic tasks, in the past, have been attributed to this unique phenomenon. The high and mighty walls of Jericho had been brought crumbling down by the shouting of Joshua's men. Entire bridges have collapsed under the steady drum beat like marching of armies. There had to be a reason for my eternal connection to that old weather swing. Maybe, the swing and I, I guess, just had the same frequency.

But more important than any of that was the direct philosophy that the swing preached to me every year like an Easter sermon. For the last thirty years I have known the swing and for the last thirty years I had noticed that the very branch that it hangs on is directed in a way that just glorifies what the I feel is the swings most favored sermon. Only those who watch closely will ever see the hallowed truth that it has always been trying to pass on in that same monotonous style that is so characteristic of it. During the day and the fifteen nights that the moon is large enough to light up the sky, the branch that serves as its support obscures the rays of light shining from these celestial bodies over exactly half of the swing's oscillatory path. Now this can mean many things or it can mean nothing to a lot of people but what I could not help, but take away from this was that as I moved through life oscillating through patches of darkness and light, sadness and happiness, disgusting times and elating times, I owed it to my self and my guru the swing to continue moving through it at that same slow frequency unperturbed, undisturbed, strong and confident.