The tree looked familiar to me, though the leaves were a bit thinner and smaller in size, and branches were straighter than what I had usually seen.  I gazed on it from my window for a while, made it sure and then murmured “Shyaa Sying  ... no it’s not … haan haan … it is actually yaar”. I picked the keys, rushed out of apartment and got near to the tree, peeled the bark off… and as I felt the touch of that “Khula Paato – Bhoj Patra” I could not hold my excitement. I walked further and looked around, to my amazement there were plenty of them…so many Shyaa Synings …wow… a mixture of emotions rose inside me nostalgia, excitement, happiness, loneliness, a feeling of sudden discovered treasure, a feeling of missing someone to share the joy… and this wasn’t it few moments later when I was walking by the road I saw “Shyuma Paato”, “Beera Chye”, “Thaawe”… and many more.  It was all like reuniting with the friends I had left long back and very far.

It’s strange that how important are things we are emotionally attached to… be it a human being or a plant or anything for that matter. The kind of ecstasy we feel while meeting or seeing them is heavenly, and the way we feel connected to these speechless forms of nature is truly beyond the words. And in case of Shyaa Sying it means more than that… it’s our root. In Darma it is part of life...part of culture… part of civilization… part of our existence.

PS: Every time I call home or friends back… I find immense joy in telling this special thing about London among the others like tube, bridge, Thames, people, traffic, and weather.