Dr. Chari Investigates: The Mystical Mysteries of Ponmanipudi

The Peepul Tree Secret

(A Dr. Chari Tale from Ponmanipudi)

The morning sun in Ponmanipudi rose a little later that day.

The birds on the temple wall seemed very hesitant to chirp.

Near the ancient Peepul tree at the edge of the village — the one where villagers tied threads for wishes — a small crowd had gathered in silence.

Sulochana.

The woman who never passed by without a smile or a joke, was found hanging from one of its low branches.

Radha, who often got her jasmine flowers from her, wept uncontrollably.

The men stood in disbelief — almost awkwardly, the way men do when they cannot comprehend emotion.

The dogs of the village sat nearby, unusually quiet, as if guarding her....

When Dr. Chari arrived, the air itself seemed to lighten.

He did not rush.

He simply stood for a long time — looking at Sulochana, at the tree, at the thread-tied branches fluttering in the wind.

The constable mumbled something about depression, poverty, and family quarrels.

But Dr. Chari wasn’t listening. His gaze had gone inward.

Later, at the small clinic near the temple, he sat alone with Sulochana’s medical records.

A pattern emerged — invisible to ordinary eyes.

Her last few visits were all for fatigue, sleeplessness, and palpitations.

The local practitioners had dismissed it as “nerves.”

But Dr. Chari knew better.

A subtle imbalance in her thyroid — a gland no bigger than a butterfly — had been whispering distress into her body, flooding her mind with despair and hopelessness...

No one had heard it. Not even she.

Dr. Chari had wanted some blood tests. But Sulochana had laughed and said " Ayya, ellee, ellee, I am floating. I am happy and lighthearted. Disease does not touch me, sir."

He sighed deeply.

“So much noise in this world,” he murmured, “and yet we miss the softest cries from within.”

At dusk, Dr. Chari returned to the Peepul tree.

The villagers had gone.

The wind moved gently through the leaves, each one trembling as if carrying secrets.

He placed a small diya at the foot of the tree.

And in that flickering flame, he felt her presence — not of death, but of release.

He whispered softly,

“Sulochana, you were not weak. You were unheard.”

As he stood there, the temple bell rang faintly in the distance, unstruck by human hand.

And for a brief moment, Dr. Chari felt something move through him —

a ripple between the seen and unseen,

between medicine and mystery,

between a life that ended and a truth that still breathed.

When he walked back through the quiet streets of Ponmanipudi, he knew this would not be the last time he would meet such a mystery —

where the body’s small betrayal hides behind the soul’s silence,

and healing means not just saving a life,

but understanding what it truly means to be alive.

“Some deaths,” Dr. Chari would later write in his notes,

“are not endings. They are mirrors — reminding us to listen before it’s too late.”