Shadow over the Henna Tree

This is the touching love story of Moyna, born and brought up in Toronto, who goes to discover her roots in Bangladesh, and Shafiq, who is a Bangladeshi war baby, (War of Independence of 1971) but has been adopted and raised in Canada. The readers are immersed with the cross cultures of Bangladesh and Canada. Many a time her inherent lessons from Shakespeare, Maugham, Ondaatje, Atwood, Darvesh, and Akhmatova are pinned against her personal inground teachings of Zainul Abedin, Jasimuddin, Lalon Fakir, Hason Raja, Tagore, and Nazrul. Her inward-eye ponders over the literary crosscurrents of Buddhism and Sufi poetry and the world of Humayun Ahmed and Shamsur Rahman. Moynas confusion has no boundaries. The fruits, blossoms, and seasons of Bangladesh are compared with the changes of nature in Canada. The Murshedi, Bhatiali, and devotional songs of the East are contrasted with the country, jazz, blues, and folk songs of Canada.

The universal language of poverty and suppression, of forceful acceptance- these are lines that Moyna must learn to blur as a diasporic South Asian female. Moynas brother has been eternally unhappy and sleepless for years and years trying to make sense of these very lines. It is cruel to even ask Aakash to try harder. A person who has never slept peacefully in such a long time cannot do justice to blurring lines without sacrificing something more.

Moyna was pensively walking down Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. The cosmopolitan mixture of faces in front of the Eaton Centre amazed her. Black, brown, white, beige, yellow all shades, shapes and sizes. African-Canadians, Italian-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, Japanese-Canadians, Indian-Canadians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Koreans and so on and so forth. Were they all Canadians or were they still clinging to their past roots of culture and tradition?

Seemingly like any other tree with dark and light green hued leaves, the henna tree did not appear to be particularly special or powerful, yet the unimaginable burst of flaming red colour when made into a paste and applied to hands, feet or hair was a miracle. The henna tree was as mysterious as life itself, with all its intricate mysteries. Often shadows darken lifes images with their tales of sadness and frustration but the silver lining of the clouds rotate and bring about unending stories of joy and merriment. The shadow which had covered the henna tree could gradually move away.