Safed Dhoop

MEDITATIONS ON THE BANYAN BARGAD/BANYAN The falling roots, Branches spreading out into the skies, The rustle of leaves, A play of twinkling sunlight, Cool shadows covering the earth below… Its this magic of the banyan which never ceases to amaze me. I drip the paint on my canvas to capture the cascade of falling roots, Of the roots playing with the wind, Of them stretching to meet the earth. My colors try to catch the intensity of the sun, the cool and quiet of the Bargad’s shadows, the magic and more that the Banyan means to me. Left on its own devices the Bargad stretches itself across eons of time and space personifying the beauty and power of nature. It had many stories to tell us, the leaves whispering the tales.. the branches intertwine like dancers explaining those lores, the roots moving to the music of the wind, talking to it.. When I lay down under the banyan, I feel like I am in a cave, a cave in which men from the prehistoric era lived… When I look up and see the way the branches are reaching up and up as if they need to touch the sky itself… like the bargad is a ladder to the sky!! Is it one tree? Or many trees? The tribes across the world have a dance in common, they dance forming a circle holding hands – the dance of life they call it. The banyans do the same…. Many become one and one become many… I, wonder at how deep the roots of the banyan go, inside the earth…snaking to the earths core… could the roots of the banyan be much more deeper than the height of its tallest branch? So does the bargad grow downwards or upwards? Does it grow taller or wider (spreads) or deeper? Or does it grow simultaneously in all directions like the swastika? Aparna Bidasaria (Indore August 2015)