Written piece
Woven Beneath the Peepal
Sahana Prasad
India
About this piece
A sacred Peepal tree outside a temple becomes a sanctuary where generations of women silently share their unspoken sorrows, secrets, and dreams. Witnessing their struggles and strength across decades, it tenderly connects grandmother, mother, and daughters, binding generations.
The Peepal tree stood outside the temple, directly opposite my grandmother's house. For as long as I can remember, it has been part of our family.
My grandmother lost her husband and was left to raise seven children. She walked to the temple each day, after her chores and then sat beneath the Peepal tree, sharing the grief and worries she had no time to carry openly. Probably that was the only time she sat and relaxed.
The years passed, but the tree remained. Daughters brought their own sorrows there. So did countless women from the neighbourhood. Beneath its branches they spoke of husbands, in-laws, disappointments and dreams. Some cried. Some simply sat in silence. They bonded, as women who suffer silently do, under the tree. The young bride who was tortured, the woman whose husband collapsed suddenly, the children who stopped visiting parents- the tree heard them all. Words that were spoken and those that were not, tears that fell and tears that never did. Yet it kept every secret.
My mother must have visited it too—when her marriage was fixed, when she became pregnant, whenever she returned to her childhood home. I visit it now. Sitting beneath its shade, I think of my grandmother, my mother, and all those who are no longer here. Those women who faced life silently , strongly, and carried on family traditions, passing the torch to the next generation They valued the tree, not as a tree but as a friend. I see younger women sitting and talking, just like olden days.
The Peepal tree still stands, its roots hold the past, while its branches reach towards the future.
For generations, it has quietly stitched together the stories of women from one family and one community.
It is our thread.