“If you really wish to wipe off the mark of auspiciousness from a married woman’s forehead, then go ahead and kill that tree.” That was what Kambaramayanam Ananthan Pillai had dramatically told the town council. And he was right. For anyone who had seen the tamarind tree in its days of glory even once, the junction now wore a vacant and desolate look that indeed brought to their minds the image of a lonely widow. They were gripped with a longing for a wealth they had lost but had no hope of regaining ever again.

After the tamarind tree had been cut down, for as long as I stayed in town, I could not pass by the spot without being assailed by a terrible sense of emptiness. I believe many others in town were subjected to the same feelings. Even today, long after the tamarind tree is dead and gone, the place is still called the tamarind-tree junction. Our tongues had gotten used to that name. People could not forget it. That lingering habit is the only memorial to the life of the tamarind tree. The tree might have lost its very form, but its name was indestructible.

Whether people visit the junction or pass by the spot on their way to somewhere else, as long as they are people from our town, they find themselves wondering at some point, “Why was the tamarind tree destroyed?” Their minds will have to work hard to get to the truth, rejecting every easy answer that is sure to come up in their hearts. Will their minds ever find an answer that their souls can embrace wholeheartedly? God alone knows. But then, so what if they never arrive at such an answer? It would not be the end of the world. All we need is an honest question. One honest question would be worth a thousand answers. Besides, there is no harm in having to think these things through from time to time.

Khader’s store closed down. The court handed him a prison sentence and he spent it at the Thiruvananthapuram Central Jail. His wife and children moved to Kalakkad.

Dhamu was released, but he came out dispirited. Perhaps it was the series of unfortunate incidents that had occurred, or his defeat in the election, or some other reason that lay buried deep within him, but he decided to leave town. He and his brother Chellappan sold the store and moved back home to Kuzhithurai with their wife and kids. Years later, when I happened to be in town, I heard that he had scraped some money together and started a dairy farm.