The Question Tree
Under the peepal behind a highway dhaba, something asks one question after midnight. Answer wrong and you are found in the branches. Answer right and it keeps asking.
On the Hyderabad to Vijayawada road there is a lorry dhaba with an old peepal tree behind it, and a row of whitewashed stones that no driver parks beyond after midnight. In 2023 a young man comes home from the city to run his dead father's dhaba, and laughs at the stones. This is the story of the thing in that tree, what it asks, what it was in 1963, and why the voice under the tree is young now.
