Doon in Spring

As a Forestry student I am obliged to tell you an amusing fact that Sal trees deviating from the normal protocols of nature, sheds its leaves in spring. Before I came to Dehradun, I had only heard that the Sal tree which is called Shorea robusta sheds its leaves in spring but I have seen it happen.
There is a rocky trail that snakes through the Sal forest and reaches college. It’s a delight to walk that trail to college in the spring kicking the dried Sal leaves knowing the spring has come and everything around will be back to their life. Walking through the Sal forest with its floor carpeted by dried leaves takes me back in time when I was just a small kid in Gorsum village, Lhuntse. The winter there used to be harsh with its cold hard winds blowing against our rosy little cheeks. The morning and evening were comparatively colder with the need to warm the room with bukhari. Hence, to meet need of firewood we used to swarm the nearby oak forest to collect the dried branches and wood from the felled trees. It was then that I used to walk the forest ground filled with dried oak leaves that was shed in the autumn. It was a joy beyond bound to walk ahead of the group and burry oneself in a heap of dried leaves and rise with a shrill cry from the ground as the group approaches near, scaring them to their bones.
Seeing the same kind of forest floor here, sometimes, the little child in me which I have with outmost care and patience kept hidden from the world tries with all its might to come out but I have grown up big enough in strength to always hide it within.