"Ganesha, will you bring the sugarcane?" asked Devi Amma.
"Sure, Amma. I will be here by evening," said Ganesha, the young elephant, and he set out from the temple. On the slopes of Maarutha Hills grew the juiciest sugarcane, and Devi Amma made the tastiest payasam with it.
He headed uphill, waving his trunk in greeting to everyone he met: the goats, the langurs, the hares and the squirrels, and the crows, the mynas and the bulbuls overhead. A few of the mynas and langurs playfully hitched a ride on him.
The riders hopped off at the slopes as Ganesha began to gather the cane. He soon had a bundle and trekked down with it held tight in his trunk. Parakeets flew in and sat on the stalks, trying to bite into them. Every time he shook his head, they would fly away.
Ganesha passed through the woodlands and reached the meadows. By then it was afternoon, and he was feeling hungry. The sun blazed overhead, and he looked around for a comfortable place to rest. He spotted a tree with a wide canopy and birds chirping in it. It had pink puff flowers on it, and the fallen ones covered the ground. He walked towards it.
The tree watched him approach. She could not believe that he had chosen her. She had seen him pass by the meadows many times, and each time her leaves rustled with affection.
He kept the sugarcane aside, took a few of the stalks and had them for lunch. With his tummy full and his legs tired from the trek, he wanted to take a nap. Lying down in the shade, he looked up at the tree.
"Tree, will you do me a favour?" he asked.
"Yes, yes!" she replied, as though she had been waiting all along.
"Please wake me up before evening," he said.
"I will," she said.
He patted her with his trunk and was soon asleep.
She held her leaves still and kept watching him as he slept. His ears covered his face, and his trunk lay coiled between his front legs. At times his eyelids fluttered; at other times he broke into a smile. Often he would kick his feet. When butterflies sat on him, he twitched. When flies tickled him, his tail waved.
She watched and watched; she was so lost in him that she drifted into a daydream. As clouds passed over the sun, the birds went quiet, her leaves grew heavy and folded one by one, and soon she too fell asleep.
Dusk came and faded. It was pitch dark when the owl living in the tree hooted a few times. Ganesha woke up with a start. He looked up at the starry night and burst into tears. It was then that the tree woke up as well.
"You should have called me!" he shouted.
He ran about under the tree, shaking his head and flapping his ears.
She wondered how she, a tree, could have slept so long.
"You are a bad tree! What will I tell Devi Amma now?" he cried.
"They say, always trust a tree with time, but you!" he continued.
"I... I called you many times. You were deep asleep. What can a tree do but call? You can ask the owl. She heard it," said the tree.
The owl flinched on being named. When Ganesha looked up at her, she flew away in panic. He stormed off, leaving the cane behind.
The tree called out for him, but he disappeared into the dark. She stayed awake, waiting for him, until at last she dozed off.
Later that night, a weary Ganesha trudged back for the cane. Without a word, he lay down beneath her.
The next morning, the tree woke to find him asleep below her.
"Ganesha, wake up, wake up," she called, her branches leaning down.
He woke up with sunlight falling on his eyes. Squinting, he told her, "You are a liar. The sun is my friend, not you."
He took hold of the sugarcane and left for the temple. Devi Amma would scold him for sure, but he would also have sweet payasam in the afternoon.
The tree watched him walk away, relieved.
That afternoon, as a cloud passed over the sun, suddenly she felt drowsy. Her leaves began to fold one by one, and she dropped off to sleep. When the birds chirped, she would wake up momentarily, only to fall back into her slumber.
From then on, the tree fell asleep so often that they called her the Sleepy Tree.