I live in a small town, with cement roads and dust smitten
air. Like all middle class small town dwellers , we relish in the small town
luxury of maintaining a garden, in the front as well as in the backyard of our bungalow.
We never got a landscape designer or a planner for the garden. Instead, through
the years, we just collected a variety of plants , and creepers and found them
an ideal spot in the garden area, that was also strewn with tiled pathways.
The garden was in-between a porch and the compound wall on
an axis, and my neighbors and a large shaded swing on another axis. Standing at
the cross points of these two axis, one stood on a tiled pathway, with shades
of green all around, along with red, pink, orange roses, white lilies ,
yellow bell flowers, nishigandha,white chameli, an overgrown cactus, some show
plants, and some mud pots along with a huge underground water tank, with a
large metal lid, in one corner. Some plants are such, whose names I never learnt,
I mention them as the tree with cropped-leaves, or elongated-leaves,
yellow-patched-leaves, white-rimmed-leaves and all that made them distinct.
As a child, I remember spending all the Sunday mornings with
my father, collecting the leaves that he had just chipped from a plant,
uprooting the weeds, digging water hollows around the stems, disposing shredded
leaves and flowers. I followed him in my flower-print cotton frocks, from one
plant to another, drooling in the joy, of feeling, splattering, and cajoling
the soft mud with my hands and feet. All
this, with the pleasure of sprinkling tons of water in the end.
Years passed, and the small pleasures of life were replaced
by exploring the world outside, new facets, up surging enthusiasm to see the
unseen.
I left for the city, to a new life outside the confines of
what I had already been and done. The garden was as fragrant, welcoming, and
inviting throughout all these changes revolving around it. Every visit back
home, every holiday, every mid-term vacation, that I came back, with a backpack
of my own, the garden waited with peace and solace. New trees , new flowers,
new rotations of pollination. All along the old bounties of the garden never
lost their charm, they looked wiser .
In summers there was
a green hue in the garden, as a
result of the protective green insulating cloth draped around on a structure of
bamboos. Creepers stretched over those as well, they loved reaching their own
heights I guess. The rains sometimes pooled
the garden, and ponds formed amidst the
plants and pots , pathways drowned in the pool of muddy waters. The garden
looked fuller, and lush with each passing year. Families of ants squirmed somewhere
beneath, through tiny tunnels. Squirrels,
birds, butterflies, mongoose, cats, all had their habitats zoned into its nooks
and corners.
Writing down a memoir for this splendid patch of land,
within my home, seems quintessential today, for all that it has been, for so
many known and unknown souls.
Every time I look at it, I find something to look at, to
ponder over, to be amused with, to be fascinated out of nowhere. Sometimes just
a tiny leaf sprouting upon a stem, an unfurling flower, a withered bunch of
leaves, a tender bud. At fortunate times, a tiny birdie with shining blue head,
or a group of yellow butterflies zooming around the garden as if in infinite
space. In some season, a family of birds with yellow beaks keeps on visiting
the garden collecting twigs, croaking at one another, scaring the baby
squirrels.
I once saw a squirrel trying to dodge a thorn laden plant,
just to get to the tip of it, for some reason unknown to me, she gave a highly
lyrical performance.
With the vast array of memories that I have with the garden now,
I realized that with each new life that each one of us planted in this garden, a
shower of happiness emancipated with its own rhythm. Each day, each week , each
month, the buds kept on sprouting, shoots kept on uprooting , flowers bloomed,
leaves withered, some even died. But this constant rhythm that flows through
the garden is synonymous only with peace and joy. It would never happen that
you gaze at it and the garden wont gaze back with a smile. Happiness is
mirrored in one half or the other. The garden has so much to give , and we just
take a handful each time.
The warmth of the deep brown earth, the fresh breeze of contentment,
a sweeping spray of fragrances in each of the colorful spaces, the chirpy noises
echoing from one side to another, the ruffling touch of leaves on your arms,
the hesitant scratch of the cactus, the neat line of red and black ants. You
take away as many flowers from it, you sweep off all the crisp dry leaves, you
unearth as many as a million weeds, you breathe in as many zestful bounties of
air from here, the garden will never fall short of giving you some more.
Life in its forgiving form,
Bountiful, incessant, ever afresh,
Even in the darkness of a moonless night,
Even in the leafy shadows
of a starlight sight,
Just step inside with naked feet and a seamless soul,
Step inside with wide eyes and unbound with a stroll,
When the world outside is too harsh, step into its shadows,
When willing to rejoice, bounce in its sunlit shallows,
You will be forever welcomed with lush green arms and mellow
whistles,
Your spot will be reserved through the harsh summers, and
the rainy drizzles.
My eyes may see less, my hands may tremble, my feet may lose
their strength one day, but my heart will always stay afresh as long as the
garden welcomes me back. Whether I stay or leave, whether I make or break
promises, as long as I can look back to the garden, the world will be a merrier
place to dwell.
