Champaklal Speaks

Champaklal’s Palm Tree

One day I went to the Oosteri Lake area. I saw a delicate and beautiful sapling of a new variety of palm tree in a garden there.¹ I liked very much its fresh leaves and asked the gardener if he could give me a sapling. Traditionally, palm leaves symbolize Victory. He had many such saplings and readily gave me one. I brought it to the Guest House and planted it in a pot which I placed on the terrace outside the room Mother occupied when she lived in that house and was later given to me.

One day Barin (who also lived in Guest House) saw the palm sapling and liked it very much. He asked me whether I wanted to offer it. I said, “Yes, certainly.” I was very happy to give it. New leaves had sprung up and it was so pretty. Barin offered it to Mother saying that it was from me. Mother said: “Yes, it can be put in a corner of our terrace.”

Barin had not expected that but he liked the idea very much and placed it accordingly. It remained there for some time and then was taken down and planted in the front garden at the entrance of Library House, on the left as you enter. Later one day—I do not know how it had happened—I found the palm in the large compound near the garage [opening into Saint Gilles street] in the Mother's new house [Secretariat House]; this time also it stood on the left side.

Whenever new leaves sprouted I used to inform Mother and she would come to the window and look at the palm for a long time. She would happily exclaim: “Magnificent! Beautiful!”

This tree yields rare but really beautiful flowers. Those who have lived here from those old times know it as 'Champaklal's palm'.

Madhav: “Ah, I see. It is the one which has survived so many cyclones that uprooted other trees in the compound—the one of which Mother was so proud for having defied the storm.”

C: “Lucky palm!”