THE TALKING BANYAN
In the quiet village of Vaikunthapur, nestled between whispering paddy fields and a slow, silver river, stood an ancient banyan tree beside a half-forgotten shrine. The tree’s roots curled like old sages in meditation, its aerial strands hung like threads of time, and its wide arms offered shade not just to bodies, but to wandering thoughts.
No one knew who had planted it. The village elders, grey and bent like the tree’s branches, said it had been there even before the temple walls were raised. The villagers called it Vani Vriksha — the Talking Tree. No one had ever truly heard it speak, but somehow, they felt spoken to.
Children said the tree whispered when they napped under its limbs. Farmers said it took away their tiredness when they sat quietly after a long day. A wandering monk once claimed that as he meditated beneath its shade, he heard it murmur: ‘Change passes. The changeless stays.’
Most villagers dismissed this as poetic imagination. But one boy, Arjun, believed. He wasn’t like the other children, who preferred to chase dragonflies or play by the river. Every morning before school and every evening before sunset, Arjun would come to the banyan, sit beneath its vast canopy, and listen. Not with his ears, but with his stillness.
The tree never moved. Yet Arjun felt it pulsing with something deeper than speech, like the quiet hum of the earth itself. He believed the banyan had stories to tell, if one had the patience to hear. The villagers found it amusing.
‘Why don’t you play with your friends?’ they asked.
Arjun would smile and reply, ‘I am. The tree is my friend. And it’s the wisest of all.’
One day, Arjun’s teacher at school gave an assignment. ‘Bring a piece of wisdom,’ he said. ‘From someone wise in the village—an elder, a priest, a craftsman. Share what you learn.’
Children ran to their grandparents, the temple priest, the healer, the potter, and so on. Arjun returned to the banyan. He sat there for hours. The breeze played with his hair. A leaf danced its way to the ground. A squirrel chattered and paused. The world moved, but Arjun was still.
‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘tell me something I can share.’
The banyan, of course, said nothing. But something shifted inside him—like an answer rising from silence, not from words.
The next morning in school, Arjun stood before the class and said, ‘I bring a lesson from the banyan tree.’
Some children laughed. The teacher raised an eyebrow.
Arjun continued, unfazed. ‘It didn’t speak to me in words. But it taught me something important — that when we sit quietly with no questions, answers appear. When we stop chasing noise, we hear what is eternal.’
The room fell silent.
Then the teacher, a scholar who had seen many young minds, nodded slowly.
‘There is wisdom in stillness,’ he said. ‘And often, trees are older than any book. Thank you, Arjun.’
After that day, others began visiting the banyan. At first, out of curiosity. Then, slowly, to sit in silence, with their thoughts, or with none.
The tree never said anything. But somehow, everyone who sat beneath it left feeling lighter, steadier, quieter.
The temple priest began meditating beneath its limbs before his morning prayers. The village healer sat there when burdened by people’s pain. Even the potter once said he found the shape of a perfect pot in the curve of the banyan’s root.
One evening, Arjun asked the monk—the same one who had once heard the tree’s murmur—why it never truly spoke.
The monk smiled and ran a hand over the bark.
‘Because real truths,’ he said, ‘are not spoken. They are felt. Just like this breeze. Just like peace.’
The banyan said nothing as always. But in its silence, something stirred—something that touched all who sat beneath it.
Years later, when Arjun had grown and the world had changed, the banyan still stood. And under its shade, another little child sat cross-legged, eyes closed, waiting to hear the silence speak.
Moral of the story: True wisdom often comes not from speaking or hearing, but from learning how to listen - to nature, to silence, and to the still voice within.
