Obitua'tree'

"No, I didn't like it." I said, wondering if I really meant what I said. The truth was actually that I absolutely hated it. I thought it was totally unnecessary and rather cruel of the rains and irresponsible on the part of the earth that bolstered it for years. My mom was talking about the great banyan tree that only a month ago stood in full glory inside the not-so-glorious compound of my building. When it fell, it took along with itself about 25 feet of the brick wall, half of the wrought iron grill of one of the flats in the neighborhood and left behind a handful of memories and an emptiness where it once stood that will always keep the memories alive.

The memories' strong tentacular grip tightened around me even more and pulled me into a well of nostalgia.
A little more than a decade ago, the tree was my best cricket buddy. It used to block all the balls hit in the air from going outside the compound (which was given out) when i batted and rebound them straight into my hands when i bowled. In the same match it could save boundaries, score runs, get wickets and do everything that the best of us could.
Behind its fatherly great trunk, under its motherly protective shade was the best place to hide in a game of hide and seek. We kids used to swing on its roots hanging from its branches; the picture almost resembling that of a family of a mother, a father and a toddler dangling between the two, holding one hand of each.
A honk or something got me back from the past into the present reality.

The tree really lived. It felt like we do. Probably the reason it decided to leave was that we all stopped visiting it, playing gleefully around it every evening. It punished us for not being there to give it company. It made us witness its fall, its execution, its mutilation and its journey to the graveyard.