The Bench Under the Neem Tree

In the old neighborhood of Gulshan Colony, there stood a neem tree older than any house around it.

Its branches stretched wide, offering shade through scorching summers and shelter during sudden rains. Beneath it sat a wooden bench — simple, cracked, and uneven — placed there decades ago by someone nobody remembered.

Once, it had been the heart of the neighborhood.

People rested there after long days. Children shared sweets. Elders debated politics, prices, and poetry. Disagreements happened — but they ended on that bench, with laughter or tired silence.

Then, slowly, the bench became empty.

It wasn’t one big event that caused it. It never is.

A disagreement between two families.

A rumor that wasn’t corrected.

An insult spoken and never taken back.

People stopped sitting together.

Then stopped greeting.

Then stopped seeing one another as neighbors.

The bench remained — but untouched.

Sadia noticed this when she returned after twenty-five years.

She had grown up in Gulshan Colony, left to study nursing, married, raised children, and buried a husband. Now, she was back — not by choice, but by circumstance — to care for her aging father.

On her first evening walk, she stopped under the neem tree.

The bench was still there.

Dusty. Forgotten.

She sat down.

Nothing happened.

People passed by, surprised but silent. Some looked away. Others quickened their pace.

The next day, Sadia cleaned the bench.

No announcement.

No request for help.

Just water, cloth, patience.

Her father asked her that night, “Why bother?”

Sadia replied, “Because it’s still here.”

Days passed. She sat on the bench every evening. Sometimes reading. Sometimes just watching the street.

One evening, a boy paused near her.

“Can I sit?” he asked.

She smiled. “Of course.”

The next day, an elderly man joined — cautiously, as if expecting resistance.

They didn’t talk much.

But they sat.

A week later, rain came suddenly. People ran for cover — except those near the neem tree.

They gathered there instinctively.

For a moment, it felt strange.

Too close.

Too quiet.

Then someone laughed at how awkward it was.

That broke something open.

Conversations returned — not deep ones at first. Complaints about weather. Jokes about old days. Questions about health.

Old tensions hovered — but didn’t land.

One evening, an argument almost erupted between two men whose families hadn’t spoken in years. Voices rose. People stiffened.

Sadia didn’t intervene.

She simply stood up and offered water.

The pause was enough.

They drank.

They sat.

They stayed.

Weeks turned into months.

The bench became occupied again — not always by the same people, not always peacefully — but always together.

Children learned that it was a place to sit, not to choose sides.

One night, during a power outage, neighbors brought candles. Someone shared tea. Someone else brought food.

Under the neem tree, the colony felt like a colony again.

Sadia never claimed credit.

When her father passed away, the entire neighborhood gathered — some people she hadn’t spoken to in decades.

The bench held flowers that night.

Years later, when someone suggested replacing the bench with a new one, Sadia said quietly, “Fix it. Don’t replace it.”

Because peace, she had learned, doesn’t come from new beginnings.

It comes from returning — gently — to what we abandoned.