Project Bonsai

By Shreyaa Deori

my mother spends most of her time tending to the garden on our roof. a mother of two disappointing kids, she thinks that her children are plants. my mother believes that the world outside is a storm that her children can't survive, that if her children are alphonso trees, the world is Tawang and if they are cherry blossoms, the universe is but Thar, that the world is the woodcutter's playground and her children, the sturdiest of trees.

so out of the trees in her children, my mother tried to create bonsais, and being the elder, her first bonsai project was me. my dreams, her twigs, our home, her tub and any dream that flirted with the air beyond, pruned under the pretext of preserving, keeping her children safe from becoming hope amputees. my mother spends all of her time tending to the garden on our roof, a disappointing mother of two kids, she forgets that her children are not plants.

By Shreyaa Deori