By L Aruna Dhir
As far as being gardening enthusiasts goes, I have inherited my mother’s love for nature and her extreme fondness for gardens and greenery.
I’ll go the extent to say that I have some of her magic touch too. Whatever I bring under my umbrella of care grows. My gardens thrive and do relatively well. Though they are far from being prizeworthy as Maa’s were. My gardens are kind of pretty. Hers were quintessentially beautiful!
But the big major difference is that my mother’s green fingers were often soiled, caked with mud, cut and bruised and never shy of mixing up manure or digging up a flower bed.
Growing up, I was always my mother’s able assistant, ‘munshi’ or sidekick, depending on the role I had to rise up to and fill. From writing official letters to Sub-Area Commanders and even Vice Chief of the Army Staff to maintaining the accounts and balancing her cheque books, my area of responsibility was well identified.
Even in gardening, Maa knew where she needed my help the most. So, I would label the paper envelopes and pretty cloth “guthis” that housed all the flower and vegetable seeds. It was a big task as the numbers were large. A humongous array of flower and vegetable seeds had been dried, dusted off and carefully sifted and sorted for the next season.
Though I would make a sham of using the spade and the trowel, Maa would sweet talk me into doing the draconian job of watering the trees she was planting around Lucky Manzil.
The gardener had to be reserved for finer pieces of work and not waste time in watering that any stooge could be made to do!
“You do want a slim waist and shapely legs, don’t you?” Maa would raise the stake in the most dulcet voice, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
Promptly on cue, I would roll up my jeans, strap up the sneakers, hook the Walkman to my belt and get ready to water my mother’s green dreams.
With a bucket and a watering can in either hand, and with ‘70s and ‘80s hits keeping my mood upbeat, I would fill the water at the hand pump and do the rounds – 17 on some days, a little more on others, if the bed of Hollyhocks and sweet peas had to be slaked.
Maa’s gardens were all about abundance, bursting with a wide range of cheerful flowers, her kitchen garden outperforming with the longest bottle gourds and plumpest tomatoes, and the fruit trees weighing down with the season’s best produce.
I have a long way to go! But one thing I have learned from Maa is to share. So, batches of Mangoes and Pears were distributed around; including packs that were sent to a ‘Hero’ who is as fond of his plants as Maa was.
Just yesterday, a few pumpkins were doled out, while our kitchen smelled divine from the aroma of freshly cooked Kaddu ki Sabzi.
There’s one thing, however, that I constantly rue.
Can I call myself an avid gardener if I don’t get my dress smudged and my hands dirty; a bud or a dry leaf sticking out of my coiffured hair?
(L Aruna Dhir is the author of the Bestselling Memoir – Hotel Adventures with the Stars. She is also a recognised International Hospitality Writer, a national poll-winning Corporate Communications Specialist, Poet, and India’s first-ever Creative Writer with Archies Greetings.)
