Tom has this in him; any bug will easily bite him. That is, he takes to ideas without measuring the volume of things he has to do! But it is to his credit that he tries, wholeheartedly, till collecting the trophy de' failure! Yet, he never got over this tendency to emulate somebody else.
The other day after reading about gardens, he rushed to Bystander’s house, his bet noir and yet a friend, to share his newly found enthusiasm for garden plants. Bystander, the personification of impatience, did not like this intrusion and yet when something is told to him, never hesitates to spin-out ideas and opinions.
“Tom, you want to raise a garden and want my suggestions! Then start with no-cost plants and try to grow them. Whatever skill you lack in gardening this might help”.
Tom did not like that jibe at his skill and retorted, “Yes, I would like to hear, if you have any idea about it at all!”
This sarcasm stung and Bystander decided to set it right then and there ‘that rubbing shoulder with is one thing and rubbing on the wrong side of it certainly is quite another thing’. He decided to lead Tom down the garden path as a ripe opportunity has presented itself, just now.
“Your idea is good. Actually all of us should be doing something about it. If you want my ideas about it, just say so!”
“Please go ahead. I am all ears to hear them”, Tom agreed in principle to hear him out.
“My philosophy is this. Anybody can raise a garden with plants from a nursery. You may get ordinary to exotic varieties. Really there is no fun in doing just that. Is there any?”
“In that case what shall I do”? Tom fell into a carefully laid trap without knowing it.
Bystander continued, “Wild plants are just the answer for your pertinent question, dear friend!” By nodding his head Tom took the first step into a quagmire.
True to his nature, Bystander authoritatively continued, “The grass you find in the wild exhibits perseverance. Growing, even in drought like conditions. They even smile at passersby while getting trampled”.
“I have seen a variety with powder blue coloured flowers. Just imagine a pot with 360 cuttings, planted radially from the center and in full bloom. What a pleasing sight it will be!
“Then turn your attention to common cactus you see on the roadside. A stem of about 15cm length can be used as a fusion pot”. Tom looked perplexed and worried about the thorny issues.
Bystander explained, “You take out carefully the succulent portion at the center to half the height of the stem and insert a wild aloevera like plant. What you get now is a wild plant inside a wild plant! You leave the chemistry part to them and they will work it out together to your satisfaction”. Tom was becoming a little dazed to hear these outlandish concepts.
Bystander continued, “Tom, there are varieties of creepers in the wild. Particularly I am fascinated by the one which instead of flowering yields tiny pepper coloured berries. Grown in a bottle of water, this plant may even develop hydro-roots! Probably you will be the first person to experiment like this. Sounds great is it not?”
At the end, Bystander dangled the irresistible, juicy carrot. He said, “If you have to be different, you have to try out things which nobody in his right mind would have dreamed of trying!”
Admiring the persuasion skills of Bystander, Tom bought this dream - lock, stock and barrel. An excited Tom got down to work like a possessed man. He religiously foraged into the wild, visited roadside shrubs and collected wild plants like a rag picker. Thinking more differently on his own, he decided on giving a separate niche in the garden to any plant that appealed to him.
He proudly surveyed the array of pots, cactus stems and water filled glass bottles resembling soldiers ready to march carrying survival kits. The grass expected with powder blue went into, all 360 of them and verified by counting and recounting, allotted pots. The aloevera like cuttings went into the holes made in the stems of c. cactus and pepper like berry bearing creepers dipping their feet, in hip deep water, in sparkling glass bottles. Tom had taken pains to get the bottles to sparkle, after a wash with liquid soap. He laid the capstone for his garden by accommodating his own selection of wild plants for in-house habitation.
Neglecting routine works, Tom started to spend more and more time in tending his nursery. He sat among the pots, cactus stems and glass jars to encourage and urge the transplanted ones to survive in an alien environment. Fearing that plants might react to his feelings, he kept his dark fears well hidden from even himself! He was as afraid as the transplants of a failure.
May be the transplants could read even hidden secrets and they started showing varied reactions after a week. If Tom’s nursery had a case sheet, like the one kept for each patient in a hospital, it would have entries like this:
The grass with supposed to bloom in powder blue colour: 25% healthy but no bloom yet, 25% in I C U, 25% in coma stage and the remaining dried and dead.
The c. cactus experiment had less complicated description: 50% semi-dried and 50% totally dried.
The pepper like berry yielding creeper: Growth remaining status quo; tendency to develop hydro-root seen in all. Water in the Glass jars clouding up and a hint of fungal/ algae growth visible.
Tom’s dreams of garden full of colourful blooms was withering , petal by petal.
The pathetic failure taught Tom important lessons: Unless you do something foolish you don’t realize how foolish you are. Pursuing something blindly will make you only to grope in the darkness. Never imagine a goal that appears easy is that easy to achieve.
No comments:
Post a Comment