The names used are all imaginary and do not intend any significance with real people.

And fell the leaf. One more. Once more.

“The autumn leaves, aren’t they beautiful?”,

said the old man Ghosh* to his little son Titir*, as he dressed Titir’s knee wound. Sitting on the ground with Titir on his lap, inside a home of bare tin sheets, they both gazed out through a gap in the sheets, something one would call a window, at a herd of cattle as the dimmed sunlight fell upon their skins. “But they fall.” replied Titir in low and calm voice. Covered in sweat and dust, Mr. Ghosh, glowed yellow golden with the sunlight, he tapped his son’s head and said, “A falling leaf ensures the growth of the tree. It is the leaf’s way to love the only part of it, the tree”. Titir replied with a hmph. Mr. Ghosh continued, “See that bird, the little green one, it’s called a bee-eater, it surely flies higgledy-piggledy. But it looks like it is chasing after something” the boy interrupted him and said, “Chases after bees, of-course”. “But why?" asked Mr. Ghosh briskly. The boy kept quiet. The old man now said, “Look up at that nest. It hunts bees for its children. It chases love.” He continued, “Bees are like the problems we face, they come, go. Sometimes we hunt them sometimes we don’t. but you should always remember my son, that the only thing we chase is love. Become the bird that chases love. For it stays with you forever, in your heart, neither does it vanish nor does it fade.” The boy stood up all of a sudden, said, “Then was my mother a mere bee or did you simply not love her?” asked the boy in a harsh tone and stormed out saying, “lie. It’s all you can do”.

Mr. Ghosh’s heart melted down into tears while his body froze to death, he couldn’t utter a single word. Years flew by just like the bee-eater.

“You can go in.,” said the nurse. A little girl ran inside the room where

Mr. Ghosh lied on a white bed with a few medical instruments connected to him in the way the little vines would try to cover a huge tree bark. The girl shouted grandpa and ran into his arms as a man in a well ironed cornflower blue shirt and a grey pant watched them while standing at the doorstep. The girl settled down in his arms. “Do you see that bird, the little green one…”, said Mr. Ghosh and the story repeated itself and staring at his shoes, the man in shirt stood there muted. “Its all a lie, you’re bluffing grandpa”, said the little girl and ran out of the room towards a beautiful lady.

“I stand here today only because of you father.” Said the man in shirt while still staring at his shoes. He stood there in silence for a while when finally, Mr. Ghosh spoke in his low, calm husky voice, “Sorry, son. Sorry for I, my lies, are the reason for you being here. Sorry for lying to you about love, about life. Sorry for all I could offer you was nothing more than lie”. Titir still had his face down towards ground,

“A lie. Again.” He murmured. Mr. Ghosh slowly looked out of the window, at the afternoon sky, towards the road where school children were wandering, tickling each other, fighting and bursting into laughter. His eyes squinted and the edges of his mouth shifted upwards.

“She was an autumn leaf…”,

said Mr. Ghosh. The man burst into tears and could no longer hold his stance.

Titir came home, his wife opened the door, “It must have been tough for you today, sit, ill make us some tea.” Titir sat on a cushioned sofa beside the window, opened the tinted glass panel, sat his daughter on his lap, held her tight within his arms. His palms trembled, his vision blurred with the teardrops he had been putting hold on within his eyes. He sat there, doing nothing. Nothing could he do!

His wife caressed his shoulder, gave him the tea. He dared open his eyes, looked at the beautiful lady that stood beside him. “Papa! Grandpa. He is coming home now, right?” asked his daughter. He slowly nodded yes. “A lie. It’s all I can give you now”, he murmured to himself. Looked out of the window, his mind blanked out. The mid evening sunlight, in which he watched his daughter’s hair glaze golden like a river of gold. A river of endless love. With his heart filled with something that an old man once aforsaid would never vanish, neither would it fade. The words which he finally understood and believed in. He squinted his eyes, calmed down, with a serene, opened them again and said to his daughter,

“The autumn leaves, aren’t they beautiful?”

*Ghosh: A Bengali surname that means Cowherd (A person who tends grazing cattle)

*Titir: A bird