Later, the story would start from the poisoner’s childhood. Her village, the people who had lived there, their relationship patterns, land ownership, marriage—all these details would be filled in. Just when the story got tense, he’d stop and chew his betel leaves again. We’d be left floundering, caught in the story, desperate to hear more.

Then the bell of the nearby parsonage would strike ten, and we’d realize how late it was. It was as if the bell’s clapper had grown longer and was striking blow after blow on top of our heads, bringing us back to our senses. Home, mother, father, school, tests . . . Off we would run, back to our lives.

Damodara Asan is no more; he died even before the tamarind tree was destroyed. No one can tell stories like Asan did—one can only try. We heard all the old stories about the tamarind tree from him. He described what the area around the tamarind tree looked like fifty years ago, and what a glorious transformation had occurred since then. He took great pride in the fact that he had seen all those old sights, things we’d never see. How envious we were; we would have done anything to see those old places he described! Damodara Asan was indeed a very fortunate man. Yet we were lucky enough to know him. If we’d been born a few years later, we might never have heard any of these wondrous stories about our town and the early life of the tamarind tree. After all, historians don’t write about tamarind trees. So perhaps we were fortunate too.

In those days, the tamarind tree was surrounded by a pond they simply called “the tamarind pond.” Stagnant water reached down to incredible depths. At the pond’s center, on ground that rose up like the back of a bathing elephant, was the tamarind tree, standing majestically with its incredible expanse of canopy and nodding its head. The little island-like mound was very narrow, just wide enough for two teams to stand close together and play a game of kabaddi. A little to the south of the tamarind pond were casuarina trees, swaying with a ghostly frenzy. They were so numerous and packed so densely that it was impossible to separate and hold a single tree in our minds. This casuarina grove was where local dawdlers went for their naps. To the east, lush paddy fields stretched all the way up to the point where the sky reached down to stop their advance.