guava tree in the backyard

true story

before we moved to pune, we lived in jabalpur. before the move, mom and dad weren't assured of getting a quarter alloted to them.. this caused mum to be quite worried... so she asked the old woman who'd come around for alms every day. the woman told her that mum would indeed get a house but the house would have a cursed guava tree in the backyard. she told mum to never look at the tree first thing in the morning and to stay away from it. mum took her words quite seriously.

sure enough my parents got alloted a really spacious, british-era quarter and we had great garden space, a drumstick tree.. and... a guava tree in the backyard! we also had super weird neighbours... shortly after, dad had to go work at darjeeling, so it was just mom, bro and I in that huge home. the guava tree was right outside our huge bedroom window such that when you wake up in the morning you'd naturally be looking at the tree... mom drew the curtains permanently and pinned god's calendar over the curtains. that way we never ever looked at the tree and she made sure we always played in the front yard of our garden space. the front yard was way better than the back yard anyway.

in our neighbourhood was a malyali family of two parents and two boys who were both older to my brother and i. they wanted our house for themselves on account of our small family and their bigger family... hence, we had to move.. to the ground floor of th etwo-storied apartment right beside our home and they moved into the house. mum was upset for a while but we gradually settled.

one fine day, the boys were playing in their backyard and the older brother who tried to climb the guava tree, slipped and fell and broke his right arm. the ambulance was called. and we went to see what the fuss was. we caught the boy walking from the backyard to the ambulance... he was a plump boy.. he was holding his right palm in his left hand.. and his forearm hung in a deep-u shape from his elbow to his hand. his hand was plump and normal till his elbow but thin and tubular beyond that. it was very strange to see. and he didn't seem to be in pain. he got into the ambulance and left and we didn't see him for a very long time afterwards. the rumour among the children was that he had a metal arm now. we were all in awe!