Unspeakable Trauma

K.R. Meera’s And Slowly Forgetting That Tree begins with an innocuous everyday scene that turns rapidly unreal. Ten-year-old Radhika’s father leaves her at a bus-stop, to go take a leak— and does not return. It’s downhill all the way from there. The lapsed moment not only exacts a terrible toll from each of its stakeholders, but also sets them up for a lifetime of unspeakable trauma that has to be read to be believed.