The house in which I grew up as a child in Kolkata had shared walls with the adjacent houses. Mostly there would be a lane in between. At one corner there were three neighboring properties meeting and one neighbor had the corner shared with ours. That building had some free space along with a house and the free space faced us.
In that free space there were some shrubs and bushes mostly of flowering plants. In the middle stood the big mango tree that almost shaded the open area. We had a three storied building. When I grew older I realized that we had the most strange staircase layout that I don’t remember to have seen anywhere in my life. I was not aware as a kid as it was very familiar since I had known it from childhood.
From ground floor to the first irregularly placed landing it moved towards North, then it turns to a little angle to the first floor towards the south, then it turned to the West, then to the North again and lastly to East. Try to draw this on a paper and you will easily get why I call it strange. The staircase was as if meandering through the building or coiling the building as a snake.
One part of the staircase was open that overlooked the mango tree of the neighbor. The mango tree was home to crows. I never found any other birds in that tree. The nest of the crows was clearly visible from the staircase. The mornings in the tree would be noisy with the crows cawing. When I would wake for school the noise would be there. Sometimes the light blue colored eggs would be visible and later on the nestling. The little nestling would then learn to caw. When cawing the red color inside its beak and throat would be visible. Again the noise will increase towards the late afternoons. For the residents the crows were a menace. It would sit on the clothes put for drying. It would bring pieces of scavenged goods and leave it. And off course the caw cawing. The mango tree was a silent observer to these.
In the evenings the mango tree grew dark. There were no sources of light hitting the tree. So the tree went dark with evening. Looking in the direction of the tree was scary. As a child I believed it was house to some ghosts. Somehow the belief was volatile during the day hours. There used to be power cuts in those days. During such times it would be pitch dark and the possibility of ghosts residing in the tree was more convincing. If I had to cross the staircase in those times I would run that stretch of the stairs. Many times I would hurt or even cut my shin in the stairs while running in fear. If there was no power cut I would first turn on the light of the stair and then fearlessly climb the stairs.
But alas, I never found a single mango hanging from the tree ever. It never bore fruit. Somehow I was so used to the presence of the tree that I may mention I liked the tree. After few years the tree was felled to clear the area. A huge kitchen with thatched roof took its place.