guava tree in the backyard

true story

before we moved to pune, we lived in jabalpur... when the time came for us to move, mom and dad weren't assured of getting a quarter(a house) alloted to them.. this caused mum to be quite worried... so she asked the old woman who'd come around for alms every day what she thought... the old lady told her that mum would indeed get a house but the house would have a cursed guava tree in the backyard... she warned 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... bro and i were little.. the guava tree was right outside our huge bedroom window in a way that when you wake up in the morning, you'd be looking right at the tree through the almost floor-to-ceiling window... mom drew the curtains permanently and pinned god's calendar over the curtains.... that way we never had to look at the tree.. we were forbidden to play in the backyard.. so 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 malayali 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 a tiny two-storied apartment right beside our huge home and they moved into the house... there was no garden space.. it was quite a downgrade for us and mum was upset for a while... but we gradually settled.

one day, the malayali 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.. an ambulance was called. and my brother and i went to see what the fuss was about. we caught the boy walking from the backyard to the ambulance... he was a big, 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 palm. his hand was plump and normal till his elbow but thin and tubular beyond that - like a water hose... it was a very strange sight.. 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 after.. 

the rumour among the children was that he had a metal arm now. 

we were all in awe!