THE GUEST AT THE GUAVA TREE

                   A sprightly and bubbly squirrel  visited the  guava tree in our backyard at Raikia during the fruit-bearing season in the 1980s. My siblings were school-goers then and I was a college student. It was a tree of different variety that  bore seasonal fruits- slightly yellowish when fully ripe, and luscious and sweet with a reddish core.  The bats from the nearby banyan trees too invaded the guava tree to feast on the fruits at the dead of night . We children fumed at their profligacy and greed. The ground beneath the tree was seen littered with half-eaten  wasted fruits. Anyway, the special guest that visited our tree very often was the squirrel with a bushy tail and sparkling eyes. It would  climb to the top branches with its nimble feet and light weight  to pick out the fruit of its choice and guzzle it cheerfully. Compared to the bats, its wastefulness was less. So was its greed. Moreover, we were happy with it and its occasional screeching and squeaking .What is more, it seemed to befriend us with its cordial behaviour and playful antics. My siblings and I never scared it away.  

                    After so many years , when one day I saw  a squirrel on the branch of that guava tree  I had a sense of  of deja' vu. It was not the same little guest that I had seen in my youthful days, but another one.

( Writer- Dr. Pradeep Kumar Nayak )