The Gardener

The gardening instinct in me came to life with great enthusiasm after leafing through a travel brochure, on board a flight. The casual interest in the printed matter started slowly increasing as I browsed through pages. At one point, I even thought why to bother with these exotic locations and flora appearing in all their glory in glossiness. This disclaimer came to an end when I reached a page about a star rated chef, though my culinary efforts are well documented in several blank pages and remain a well kept secret by my clan.

Occasionally they use these secrets to corner me whenever I make an unpalatable remark about the prepared dishes. In the hurry to defend their domain, they forget one’s mango juice could be another’s margosa leaf (neem) juice.  Notwithstanding all these inter family feuds, the page that held my attention, breathing life into my gardening skill, was that of a chef at work. More so, particularly the tender, garnishing plant varieties that appeared alongside the chef was the reason for riveting my attention.

The rest of the journey passed off amidst dreams of designing kitchen gardens in pots and trays, kept on the top of fridge, washing machine, window sills.  Unconventional designs like hanging gardens from the ceiling, curtain rods and under bulb fittings also appeared in the dream. Another stream of dreams cried for my attention to domesticate wild, exotic outdoor plants as indoor varieties. The dreams were very vivid and I could recollect them frame by frame as in timed interval photography.

Not given to let go an idea, I set in motion plans for realizing these dreams at the earliest. I drew mental bar charts to schedule carefully planned activities. The first task was to mobilize resources. Empty plastic takeaway containers, broken china cups and other utility containers (some emptied out without the knowledge of family members) assured me a good ‘plot” to raise my garden.

The soil & manure part came next, and I planned visits to (beg, borrow or steal from) neighbourhood gardens and cattle sheds. I had belief in my abilities to raise the seedlings from the household vegetables and spices, as they give options to attempt more than once. I silently applauded myself on these contingency plans!

From my to-be-grown list, I selected chillies, tomatoes and coriander  The reason was obvious – easy to sprout and used on a daily basis, which will ensure less resistance from the kitchen managers of the house. I hung around them, in the kitchen, like a hawk to snatch away a dry chilli or a tomato or a table spoon of coriander seeds. They raised hell with me for occupying their spaces in the kitchen and on the fridge top, with a complaint that all these were eyesores.

Weathering these storms, I prayed at the ‘plots’ urging the seeds to sprout. After about ten days, during one of the inspection tours of my ‘plots’, I imagined to have seen some sprouts and ended up in this confusion – which pot has which seed? This was an unforced error Roger Fedderer or Djigjowick or whoever would not have committed on a tennis court!This mystery remained with me for two more days as the seedlings have decided to identify themselves. Each sprout carried on its head the seed cover from inside of which it had taken birth. I admired their humility in touching the ground with the head and then showing the id – like batsmen after hitting a ton, double ton or triple!

To silence the critics and get more cooperation for future expansions, WhatsApp pictures of my garden went to friends, relatives and of course to my family members. The onion, potato and carrot plants appeared to be very much pleased with the table top and a wooden stool accommodation. The heartily fed seedlings somehow managed to live a comfortable life. Only I had to put up with occasional complaints about a sort of dung smell wafting through the house.

A kitchen garden taking its root in the house is the only important thing now and not the yield from the effort. Actually the photographs I have of my plants appear as glossy as the ones I saw in the brochure.

Next agenda was to bring up a sit-out garden with flowering plants. My house mates declared a full scale war, of words, to dissuade such an attempt. The so called sit-out was a multitasker – as post-laundry dryer, floor level attic, shoe stand and other sundry things all in the name of keeping the house presentable to visitors. This sort of sidelining of the sit-out irked me and so I commandeered it for my present usage. I silently went about clearing this space and finding other places for hiding the obvious and this must have convinced them that a better use for the sit-out could be a flower garden and truce was declared!

The roses, jasmines, chrysanthemums and marigolds did not interest me. I earned for something exotic which I myself wanted to bring home after a botanical excursion in the neighbourhood.  Simply stated, I wanted to grow wild plants, in various hues and types, which are seen only on the road sides. Somehow their ‘wildness’ struck a sympathetic chord in me. Like a snake charmer I used to come home from my expeditions with creepers, shrubs and cacti. I planted the cuttings and believed my enthusiasm together with their urge to survive would do the rest.

Under my surgical skill (grafting), a cactus stem bore a mini aloevera, a berry bearing creeper received a flowering one, a shrub and a croton became ‘stem mates’ and so on. Polythene covers of appropriate shade became the greenhouse for this experimental nursery.  Even in my dreams I would not forget the coconut shells for consenting to be the crucibles in my acid tests.

While the innovative grafting works were slowly progressing (grafts did not die and parent plants did not dry up), I wanted to hasten the process a bit. A stray thought that occurred was implemented in “toto”. Liberal helping of dregs of Coffee powder and tea leaves went into the pots of the vegetable garden, thinking that the soil there knows better methods of composting. Without waiting for tangible results, the same was repeated in the sit-out garden too. 

The tragedy unfolded after a week or so. A swarm of tiny flies and nameless insects proliferated on my nutrient bath. I lost the war in raising the kitchen garden on account of these invaders. To get even with me, my dear family members ganged up and threw out the sit-out garden also. I am ruing the loss of my experimentally grafted plants as they had not given my hope a slip. After all Edison made number of attempts to get the electric bulb glowing. I had only faced my first failure as a gardener. Another travel and another brochure will surely revive that  dream once again!