The Song of the Sky Tree

by Nandita Basu

“Our worlds separated in that one moment. Nothing was enough, not even the heart.”     Those moments that define our lives, those times when we lose someone we love, or those when we realise who we really are as people.   Set in the times when there were no cell phones and cassette players belted out your favourite songs, Vedika grows up with a brother who she battles with fiercely and often, a best friend in school who leaves with his family for another country so she has to learn to be alone once again, a sense of aloneness that comes from a sense of alienation and difference that she can never get rid of.   A warm, funny, heartbreaking story of growing up in the 1980s and 90s, moving cities and becoming a vet which means so much to her because she understands animals more than she does human beings.   Vedika meanders through life, trying to make sense of work, friendships, love and sexuality. But when things take a turn for the worse and she realizes she might lose more than she ever bargained for, she tries to grapple with all that’s gone wrong till she can learn to make her peace with the life she has.  

246 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 26, 2023

Reviews

[Deotima Sarkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vedika is the 'poka' (insect) sister to ze bro, Ze is friendless since ze early years and the room ze shares with ze brother, has LOC point all marked by a shoe. Through ze little interactions, Vedika's life through the song in ze mind points to us about the enormity and the seamless flow of life together.
Be it the house help Beenu di's parentage on them, the non blood related dadu and his box of non valuable treasures, or even the little kindness, ze brother's friend Wasim shows ze is immeasurable in the message they carry about the simplicity yet feelable value of life.
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Then comes the chapter of ebb and flow in ze life surrounding Agasthya, who becomes her best friend, is bullied at school, beaten and then after carving out a space in her life, shifts to Sydney with loss of contact.
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Vedika becomes a vet, shifts to Delhi and this chapter describes ze connecting with Trisha and how the major part of her life plays out now. They start a vet centre together, their compassion for animals together with their companionship as friends forms the main source of plot in Vedika s life at this point. Agasthya aka August makes a reappearance all with his gay sexuality leaving Vedika on a journey of thoughts and realization about ze.
The role of every character, every incidence is well plotted and obviously this being a graphic novel, the art is what I am talking about. The sketches are not overy, not perfect but the way the are presented, you can percept everything perfectly so it makes beautiful sense!
Vedika s realizations and perceptions around the banyan tree is really deep at all points and I can see how its a source of awe, solace and fun all together. As ze realizes about ze asexuality, I have used 'ze' pronoun to describe Vedika. I hope that works.

[Aruna Kumar Gadepalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic novel deals with the identity of a girl and later a woman who tries and see the world from her perspective ties to see what it is to be a woman. The book tries to see the relation of her with a Banyan tree as a child to keep to herself as she feels that she is different. The narrative tries to see the Banyan tree with its nature. A well-written book.