Planting Memories

I enjoy looking at the few potted plants in my balcony. I water them every morning, look for new buds, smile at the newly blossomed blood red hibiscus flowers, notice the new baby leaves. I observe how the twin creepers of Aparajita are gradually growing and strengthening their hold around the railing. Its bright blue flowers. I sometimes even grind fruit peels and mix it up with the soil.

One morning, while looking at the plants I realized I have subconsciously chosen only those plants which I am familiar with since childhood. A red hibiscus (jaba), a basil (tulsi), Aloe Vera, Curry leaves (kari patta, while is called mitha limbda in Gujarati, although I haven't quite figured out what is mitha (sweet) about it). All the plants I now have were there in our house while I was growing up among a few others which need a little more love and care to blossom. I have chosen ones that are easy to maintain and have medicinal or culinary uses too.

My Guru (Grandmother) had a terrace full of potted plants. Watering and caring for them each day on her own.  She never really liked having a mali (gardener) around even when she was much too old to take care of all the plants on her own. I used to occasionally watch her digging up the soil, tossing in used tea leaves and crushed egg shells into the soil. As she went about her gardening, she spoke about which plants needed more or less water, extra fertilization etc. She expressed surprise about how much water the plant was "drinking" in the summer days, like they were real humans. She even told me about the prohibition on planting too much poppy during the British rule since poppy seeds can be used to make a potent drug (afeem).

She liked to have plants that either had medicinal properties or bore flowers (Roses, Dahliya, Poppy). She took great pride when her roses grew big or had a unique color. We even have a picture of her with her roses in full bloom! If she ever got a cut or a burn from working in the kitchen, she preferred to use Aloe Vera pulp over any of the medicine tubes at home. The hibiscus leaf was a great alternative to shampoo and tulsi leaves were often crushed and used as medicine for me for the common cough and cold that I was very commonly affected with during my childhood years.

At that time I did not know what she was imparting and that I was learning. While she was sowing seeds, nurturing saplings, watering plants maybe even she did not realize that she was also sowing seeds of knowledge, planting stories and memories in a child's mind. It has been over two years that she passed away but I guess she lives on in many such small ways, in the way we celebrate our festivals, the food we eat and even the plants we choose to grow and how we use them.

Sometimes, I look at my children's angelic sleeping faces at the end of a day when they have truly tested my patience ( and sometimes even convert me into a screaming mom-ster), I wonder if I am planting some seeds of knowledge and good memories in their heads. Am I nurturing these saplings the right way? Hopefully!

I guess I would find the answers many years from now...till then, we have two small elephant shaped kiddy watering cans to water my plants with.