Flame Tree Road

by Shona Patel

  “Two,” said Moon. She sat on her haunches and bounced her bottom.

  “Next?” said Biren, looking at Layla. Moon gave her a little prod.

  “Three,” whispered Layla, her voice barely audible.

  “My turn. Four,” said Biren.

  “Five!” shouted Moon, clapping her hands.

  “Six,” whispered Layla.

  And they went all the way up to stop at eleven, where the matchboxes ended.

  “Game over,” said Biren.

  “Again-again-again!” cried Moon.

  Biren got to his feet and dusted his hands. “Now you two play,” he said, and walked back to his chair.

  “You are good with children.” Mitra chuckled. “Remember how you taught me sums using peanuts?”

  Biren grew sad thinking of all years he had missed out on with his own daughter.

  “I never had the opportunity to watch Moni grow,” he said softly. “She slipped through my fingers.”

  Mitra was thoughtful. “Now you have these two,” she said. “Maybe you can give them what you could not give her.”

  “I don’t know if Layla will ever accept me as her grandfather. She is so painfully shy.”

  “Give her time, Dada. She sees how Moon adores you. She follows Moon around and imitates everything she does.”

  “I want to spend more time with the girls,” said Biren. “It will give me the opportunity to get to know Layla.”

  “I have an idea,” said Mitra. “When school closes for the summer I’ll bring them to Silchar and we will spend the summer months with you. The change will do me good and the girls will love your big house. You can show them your school and teach them things.”

  Their visit could not come soon enough.

  * * *

  That summer Biren studied Layla carefully. She was painfully shy. Often the girls wandered into his study. Moon, incapable of sitting still, ran around like a hurricane and then ran out, but Layla lingered. She ran her fingers along Biren’s desk and sometimes touched his books. Once she picked up Charulata’s bookmark lying next to his diary and stared at it for the longest time, running her finger over the bumpy pattern. She held the bookmark a few inches from her face, her tiny brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  “B,” she whispered to herself. Biren could hardly believe his ears. She had deciphered the first hidden alphabet symbol of his name!

  There was something about her furtive curiosity that reminded Biren of the young fox he had befriended in the Grantham meadows. If he acted busy and preoccupied, Layla crept closer. Sometimes she stood so close he could feel the warmth of her small body against his arm. But she still did not speak.

  One day she pushed a small hard object in his hand.

  “What is it?” Biren muttered absently. He looked out of the corner of his eye and his heart took a tumble. It was Moni’s Russian doll!

  A lump rose in his throat as he fought back the sting of tears. Afraid to trust his voice, he took the doll and turned it around, pretending to examine it. Something rattled inside.

  “Is there something inside?” he asked nonchalantly.

  Layla nodded vigorously. Her silky hair shimmered like a scarf. Biren smiled at her enthusiasm.

  “You can open it,” she said, pushing against his arm.

  Biren unscrewed the top half of the doll. Inside the hollowed chamber were several shiny oblong seeds.

  Biren spread a few seeds on his palm.

  “What are these?” he asked, separating the seeds with his forefinger.

  “Seeds,” Layla said. Her eyes widened and she spread out her thin arms. “From a big-big tree.”

  Biren thrilled to hear her voice. It was solemn and sweet, just like her eyes.

  “Oh,” Biren said, feigning casualness. “I wonder what kind of tree it is.” He had learned by now if he directed a question at her, she would not answer. To trick her into a conversation he had to sound as if he was talking to himself.

  “A big red tree,” she said eagerly, leaning into his arm.

  He knew he had to proceed delicately. An inch in the wrong direction and she would curl back into herself like a sleeping fern.

  “I used to have a doll like this once upon a time,” he said slowly to himself. “I wonder who gave Layla the doll.”

  “My Moni-ma,” said Layla, clear as day. “Moni-ma told me to keep this doll because she was going away.”

  Moni-ma. So that’s what she called her mother. Biren eyes welled up; he had to look away.

  Layla picked up the seeds one by one from Biren’s open palm and put them back inside the doll. She capped the top half and offered the doll to him.

  “Take this,” she said solemnly.

  “No, it’s yours,” Biren replied quickly. “Your Moni-ma gave it to you. You must keep it.”

  “You keep it for me,” she pleaded, and pushed the doll into his hand. “Because—” she paused to look furtively over her shoulder “—Moon will break it.”

  Biren smiled. He took the doll and rattled the seeds.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll keep it with me, and when you come again we will plant the seeds together, all right?”

  Layla nodded. She turned and skipped out of the room.

  * * *

  They planted the seeds in mud pots the following summer. The girls watered them every day, and soon twenty-nine flame tree seedlings unfurled their feathery leaves to the sun. After the big rains in June the seedlings turned into healthy saplings with sturdy stems, and by the end of that summer they had all been planted at thirty-foot intervals along the road leading to Biren Roy’s house.

  Today it is a shimmering avenue of flame trees: twenty-nine in all that meet in a glorious canopy overhead and provide a dappled shade to walkers below. It struck Biren only recently that Maya was twenty-nine years old when she died. There is one tree for every glorious year of her life. It comforted him to know the avenue of flame trees would be there to shower down blessings on future generations long after he was gone.

  2nd April 1950

  Mitra maiyya,

  I write to you from beautiful Falmouth in Cornwall. Spring arrives here earlier than the rest of the UK and right now the Enys Gardens is resplendent with bluebells.

  Estelle lives close to Gyllyngvase Beach. This is the perfect weather for long walks, plenty of good reading, pots of tea and cozy evenings.

  We are both in our eighties now, although, if you count my actual birthdays on the leap years, it makes me nineteen years old. This was my age when I met Estelle. So in effect I am taking up from where I left off. Estelle tells me I have become rather juvenile in my old age. I was an old man in my youth, which surely entitles me to youth in my old age, don’t you think? Estelle, on the other hand, has mellowed like a rather fine wine. She is doing serious writing while I dabble in children’s stories. Right now I am writing the story of two ants, Elo and Jhelo, and their adventures on a boat, complete with pen and ink illustrations done by Nitin. Nitin—who inspired the book—is eager to get a copy for his granddaughter. He is retired and settled in Chandanagore and has made quite a name for himself as the cartoonist for the local paper.

  My school in Silchar is running effortlessly. Estelle’s niece, Bridgette Olson—James’s daughter—has taken a keen interest. Our teachers’ training institute is one of the best in the country. We have a fine hostel and provide free accommodation to single women, mostly Hindu widows and spinsters who have enrolled in our teaching program.

  Estelle and I plan to return to India in early fall. We will spend the Christmas season in the tea plantations of Aynakhal with Layla.

  I am pleased to know you will visit Silchar to see the new vocation center. Chaya will take good care of you all. This is a splendid time of year when the flame t
rees are in full bloom. There are many dreams I have realized in my life, maiyya, but planting the flame trees have given me the greatest joy of all.

  Yours,

  Dada

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from TEATIME FOR THE FIREFLY by Shone Patel.

  A Note to Readers

  I believe it is the land that shapes its people. My ancestors migrated from Sylhet in East Bengal—now Bangladesh—to Assam several generations ago. The Bengal and Assam settings for Flame Tree Road are entirely fictitious, constructed mostly from imagination and stories I have heard. I used the vast riverine delta of East Bengal with its ever-changing waterways, its monsoons, floods and famine to set the mood for this novel. The unpredictability of life in these parts creates a certain restlessness and a sense of fatality in the mind-set of the people. This is echoed in the lonely, haunting songs of the river boatman. As a child I learned these folk songs from my father. He hummed them in the morning as he laced his canvas boots getting ready for kamjari—field supervision—in the tea plantations where he worked as a manager. I have carried these river songs in my heart to distant worlds; they are embedded in my blood.

  It was a deliberate decision on my part not to revisit the places I was writing about. New sensory experiences have a way of overriding imagination, sometimes to its detriment. As a result the elusive dream-like quality I wanted to capture in my storytelling would have been lost.

  I am often asked if the character of Biren Roy—Dadamoshai in Teatime for the Firefly—was inspired by a real person. The answer is no. Biren Roy is an amalgamation of several enlightened thinkers of India. I constructed his character drawing from the lives and teachings of Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi, Vivekananda, Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo, among others. Doing my research, I was deeply humbled by the immense spiritual wealth our great teachers have bestowed on us. Surely in this treasure trove of wisdom are the keys to a peaceful, more unified world.

  Shona Patel

  Fountain Hills, Arizona

  October 2014

  Acknowledgments

  As usual my debts are substantial.

  Thanks to all my readers who loved Teatime for the Firefly and encouraged me to write another novel. This book is for you. My heartfelt appreciation goes to Barbara Peters of Poisoned Pen Bookstore, for being my passionate champion and holding Teatime up to the world.

  Special thanks to Emily Ohanjanians, my talented editor at MIRA Books, who was quick to grasp the essence of the story in all my incoherent ramblings and coax it out with sensitivity, insight and intelligence.

  To April Eberhardt, literary agent extraordinaire, my deepest gratitude. She pulled me out of the weeds and kept me buoyed with endless doses of optimism and unconditional faith. She is my secret ally and a dear friend.

  To Mimi Dutt and Mithoo (Mothy) Wadia, my love. They were with me from the very beginning and I counted on their honest, unfiltered feedback every step of the way. They know me better than I know myself and I would be completely lost without them.

  I was halfway through my first draft when I met the delightfully quirky and quintessentially English Paul Tucker, who has more stories, trivia and knowledge in his head than several bookshelves. I am grateful to him for his openhearted sharing. Also to Roisin Hannon for her research and story details for the Cambridge Union Society section. To Priscilla Myers, Rae Iverson, Davey Lamont and Dr. Mickey Wadia for their thoughtful inputs on early drafts.

  With all my love to Vinoo Patel, who handles my thrills, throes and constant woes with characteristic aplomb. I can never adequately express my gratitude for his sweet, caring presence in my life. Thank you!

  FLAME

  TREE

  ROAD

  SHONA PATEL

  Reader’s Guide

  A Conversation with the Author

  What was the inspiration for this story?

  The initial prompt for telling Biren Roy’s story came from my readers. After the publication of Teatime for the Firefly, many readers wrote to say how much they loved the character of Layla’s grandfather, Dadamoshai—Biren Roy in this book—and wished they could learn more about him. I had not written Teatime intending to write a prequel, but luckily for me, there were several open leads I could use to recreate Biren Roy’s backstory. It was a formidable task to delve into the past of a fictitious character and imagine the life events that might have shaped his inner journey. I based the story on the belief that some people arrive at their inner peace and wisdom only by transcending great personal tragedy. As Shamol says in Flame Tree Road, sometimes one has to lose everything to renew and bloom again. I imagined Biren Roy to be that kind of person.

  The story explores many different themes. Was there a particular theme that was close to your heart, that you enjoyed exploring most?

  I am fascinated by the role of human conscience in a moral or ethical dilemma. I want to understand why a person makes a certain choice and how the consequences affect his life and ultimately reshape his character.

  I am also deeply interested in social and political issues that collectively affect the mind-set of a society. It becomes impossible to judge a race or religion when viewed in the context of its cultural history. Nothing is simple, or black-and-white. I like to understand the issues from different sides.

  Is there a character in the story that you identify with? Or a favorite character among the varied cast?

  I am deeply invested in all my characters, both major and minor, and I don’t really have a favorite. I create specific characters to act as foils to my main character or to further my story. It is crucial for me to have a firm grip on my characters. I must intimately “know” them and see them clearly to be able to write about them. Without my characters I don’t have a story.

  What kind of research went into writing Flame Tree Road?

  In a nutshell: extensive, involved and far, far more than what you ultimately see in the novel. I am not comfortable unless I am sitting on a huge bedrock of research to even begin to write. I find too little research makes my writing flat. Only when I have enough matter to play with can I paint with finer strokes and greater control. Besides written material, I rely on visual and auditory sources: movies of the period, videos, photos, paintings, music, even actual objects. To write about a striking cobra I have to watch a video to see how high it rears up and hear the actual “growl” in its throat. To write about death I have to hear the actual death rattle of a dying person—yes, it’s all on YouTube; very disturbing and not recommended. Even to describe a caterpillar crawling on a windowsill, I research to make sure it is the right species of caterpillar that eats the leaves of the Bramley apple trees. You have no idea how obsessive I am!

  What was the most challenging part of writing this book? What was the most enjoyable?

  The most challenging—and terrifying—part of writing this book was the idea of writing a second book in the first place! I had written my first book at my own pace and own time and I had no idea what a writer’s life really entailed. Suddenly there were interviews, public appearances, deadlines, self-imposed expectations, acute self-doubt and fear of judgment and failure. I had no clue what the story of the second book would be. Even after working out some kind of outline I was all over place. There were false starts, dead ends, bouts of howling—just ask my husband!—and a frozen shoulder that most likely resulted from a frozen brain. I finally had to calm down and get centered so I could write the novel, and voilà! Here I am!

  I really enjoy the revision process because I love problem solving. I like to understand where the holes are in the story and figure out ways to fix them. Seeing a book evolve to its final form in the editing process is very thrilling for me.

  What do you hope your readers will take away from this novel?

  I hope this novel gives my readers new insights into a f
oreign culture. Many Westerners—I hate to say—have a very simplistic understanding of Indian society. The caste system, arranged marriages, joint families, superstition, religion and rituals, no matter how seemingly backward and barbaric, have all evolved for societal reasons. To understand why they prevail one must understand the history and culture of the people. I hope my novel prompts open discussion. If my story brings my reader to a new place of empathy and understanding, I will have done my job as a writer.

  Can you describe your writing process? Do you tend to outline first or dive right in and figure out the details as you go along?

  My writing process is chaotic and messy and I would not recommend it to any writer. Typically I don’t begin with an outline, and even if I do, I almost never know which way my story will go once I start writing. On the other hand I usually have a clear idea for my main character. Besides character, I must also have a clear idea for the setting of my story, which is usually a place of geographical and historical interest, preferably one I am familiar with. The plot and the minor characters all unfold in the writing process itself. My first draft is the sacrificial goat—a pathetic animal that makes sad bleating noises. This is hacked to pieces amid much hair tearing and breast-beating. My near and dear ones all flee during this period. When the dust settles and if I am very, very lucky, a few threads of the story begin to emerge. After that it is all work. I am ruthless with my revisions and have no qualms about throwing massive chunks of the novel out if it does not fit the story. I am never happy with the end result and the danger is I can nitpick a story to its demise. Thank God for deadlines as this forces me to give up the manuscript.

  Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on right now?

  Writing the third novel is an intimidating thought. The old terror creeps up, but I think I am getting more savvy, more blasé or wise—call it what you will. I am toying with the idea of going back to the tea plantations of Assam as the setting for my third novel. There is an old comfort in writing about what I know. I may explore the Jimmy O’Connor story. He was the oddball Irish tea planter in Teatime for the Firefly, a very interesting multidimensional character. Again there will be social and cultural themes embedded in the story. But I will need to take a break and clear my head before I jump in.