From Dust thou Hast come and to Dust thou must return...

A hundred years ago a family sat down to lunch. Dessert was mango. The Mango seed {ok Bata } was dried. And then sprouted , then planted , then watered. It grew and it grew and it grew. So did the family. The four bedroom cottage was enough for six brothers and two sisters. But it wasn’t enough for the spouses that soon came along.
So down went the cottage and up came the building. The mango tree kept growing too. A shady spread across a road that just about featured on the map. But soon another cottage down the road came down. They needed more power lines. So they dug a little trench . A few roots of the mango tree were in the way. Re-route the cables. No way. A root here a root there they were sure it wouldn’t make any difference. It didn’t t. The mango tree still flourished.
The new flat owners on the sixth floor wanted a compound wall. The stray dogs came in through the barbed wire fence and were using the wheels of their new Ambassador as a lamppost.
Then came telephone cables. They couldn’t be next to the power cables. A whole new trench. The monsoon was causing a problem. All the open ground which used to absorb the rainwater wasn’t open anymore. Storm water drains. Yes. It worked. No more flooding.
Gas cylinders were on their way out. Piped gas was in. No more waiting in line at the gas agency. No more trying to highjack the delivery man when he was delivering a new cylinder to Mrs. D’souza on the second floor. Another trench. A root here a root there they were sure it wouldn’t make any difference. It didn’t . The old mango tree still flourished.
Internet access. Broadband , no less. Needs separate cabling. Far from the power lines which would cause data loss. Far from the gas line so that their was no risk of puncturing them during installation. Far from the storm water drain so that there was no chance of water getting into the junction boxes. Wow. We could video conference with JoeBoy in far away New Zealand. MP3’s of Sting’s latest and even whole movies. Internet radio.
The sewage lines kept getting choked. More flats. More people. More people more crap. More crap same drain. Same drain, Overflowing manholes. Bigger sewage lines. Problem solved. Some sort of root had actually come thru the concrete. Into the drain. Cut , clear, plaster.

A month ago a family sat down to lunch. Dessert was mango. The fruit of the tree in the garden. Each family in the building got an equal share. The last year each family got fifteen mangoes.. We must take some to Borivli when we go to visit the grandchildren.

A week ago a family sat down to lunch. The rains came early this year. Thunder and lightning. The storm water drains were over flowing. The damn municipality hadn’t cleared them . And for no apparent reason the mango tree keeled over. Damn. It uprooted a whole section of the compound wall. Telephone. Dead. Internet. Extremunction. Gas , turned off at the mains. Electricity. Dead. The sixth floor peoples’ new Octavia. Smashed. The lift shaft. Flooded.
Lets cut down both the neem’s and the jackfruit tree before they fall and cause even more damage.