Too much
- Maggie Inbamuthiah
- Sep 10, 2024
- 2 min read
Me walking with a cane support did not deter my neighbour. He rushed to me as I slowly limped into the house with a sprained ankle. After the cursory checking in, he launched into his case. "Let's please cut the mango tree down. The falling leaves create so much dust and I am having huge issues cleaning up. It is not even bearing fruits. Can't you have it cut down, please?" He was referring to the huge mango tree, trapped in concrete in the small back yard of my house, right in the middle of the city.
The tree is too much.
Too big. She spreads across three households and dumps her leaves gleefully across them all, indiscriminately.
Too dense and sprawling that the western part of my house is always dark. I need to switch on the lights even during day time.
Too loud. During the mango season, the unripe mangoes that wouldn't make it to full term would fall making loud noises, sometimes all through the night.
Too messy. The falling leaves would wither into dust and clog my water pipes from time to time.
And too sensitive. When there are less rains in a year, she stops giving fruits. I mean, a fruit tree has one job. To bear fruits. Why is she worried about climate change?
She is too much. Like a woman.
I have lived in this house for 4 years and until the last Mango season, she always gave abundantly. Not too sweet, not too sour, the fruits were delicious on their own. I would keep 10 fruits and distribute the remaining among neighbours. The gardener would take home a haul of 10 kilos of fruits.
But she was barren this year.
Like a woman, if she cannot bear kids, she has no use.
That evening I went up to the terrace and listened to the squirrels and birds calling the tree their home. Despite being in the middle of a concrete jungle where I cannot see the sunrise or sunset, I see mynas, bulbuls, koels, and hoopoes around my home, thanks to her. I touched her branches laden with white flowers in March and green fruits in May, until last year.
In spite of being enclosed in concrete, cut off from other trees and plants, she did her best, year after year. The dark part of my house was also the coolest, thanks to her sprawl. I never needed air conditioning.
Maybe my tree is a grandma now. A menopaused old woman, with arms extending lovingly to the little birds and animals who call her home.
Too much heart.
A tad too less on marketing. On taking space. On making her case. On showing financial returns. On elucidating the value she creates. In contrast, the fallen leaves glare at me unappealingly. Like wrinkles on a woman's face.
Is this why we don't invest in women?
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