The Last Tree in a Concrete Jungle

  In the heart of a restless city where the sun barely touched the pavement and glass towers reached like steel fingers into the sky, there stood a tree. Not a towering oak or ancient banyan, but a modest gulmohar with fiery red blossoms that dared to bloom amid cement, sirens, and smog. It stood alone in the courtyard of a forgotten building complex, surrounded by broken benches, graffiti-stained walls, and the hum of a city that no longer noticed it. No one quite remembered how long it had been there, but the old watchman, Raghu , claimed it was older than the high-rise that now loomed beside it. Every morning, while the city raced to check its notifications and schedules, Raghu would pour a small bucket of water at the gulmohar’s roots, whispering stories as if the tree could still listen. To the rest of the world, it was just a tree. But to Raghu—and perhaps to something more—it was memory. It was hope. The Girl with the Sketchbook One monsoon afternoon, whe...