My first love And my first poems Blossomed under a banyan tree. My poems never died.... Sundar's biggest dream is about to come true. He has been accepted into a program of higher education in the far away city. But he is seventeen and in love for the first time, and this is rural India of the 1960's, where cultural edicts reign superior to dreams of the heart. To stay back and fight for love would be to sacrifice the wings that would raise his family from obscurity; to leave would be to rip apart the very fabric of his heart. Several decades later, Dr. Sundaralingam, now a media celebrity, recollects the memories of his first love and the many journeys that have led him from his humble beginnings to national renown. And on the eve of his retirement, he reflects on where the memories and emotions of a lifetime head to after the final roll call has come. Once upon an autumn leaf is a story of the ageless loves that bind and tear us and the choices that make us into what we are.