The Man Under the Banyan Tree

The banyan tree stood sentinel at the edge of the marketplace, its sprawling branches a haven for a community of daily wage workers. Every morning, a scene unfolded beneath its shade — men, weathered by years of hard labor, gathered, hoping for a day’s work. This was the village I grew up in, a small, tightly-knit world where everyone knew everyone else, or at least, everyone’s role.

We didn’t have the luxury of LPG gas. Cooking was fueled by wood, which meant a periodic pilgrimage to the depot and the subsequent task of chopping the hefty logs into manageable pieces. This was…