Lessons My Garden Taught Me

I enjoyed my fifteen years as a Mumbaikar living in a gated community comprising concrete sentinels rising on flattened hillocks set amidst manicured gardens to create a concrete jungle! 

Thereafter, there occurred the rather reluctant migration to Bangalore in 2005 provoked by personal exigencies. My new abode - at my parents’ house - was a spacious room opening onto a spread of terrace where dust swirls danced like dervishes to remind me I was in the ‘garden city’.

Looking onto this grim plateau of concrete there dawned the realisation that adapting to the new ecology would require adaptation in the ecology of my mind but it would take small steps to address that ecology of my mind before I could respond to the changing ecology around me.

Lo and behold the writing did appear on the basement wall... when there was seepage during the rains. The Old Testament prophet appeared in the guise of a waterproofing whiz who after curing the basement undertook this act of creation transforming the terrace into my veritable Garden of Eden.

While the Monsoon draped the surrounding trees in myriad greens, a carpet of lush grass with a sprinkling of wild flowers was now the ecology I enjoyed 24x7!

Spurred by Mother Nature I complemented her efforts ornamenting the garden with an urli sprinkled with flower petals serving as a pendant contrasting her greenery. Evidently charmed by my aesthetics I observed I had unwittingly created a watering hole for the local avian population who dropped in for a twitter, caw and cackle. The effective social networking enticed the neighbourhood koyal to assume residence in the laburnum tree with an urli facing view. Electronic wake up calls were now replaced by the melodious punctuality of the wake up koyal!

Hearing about the ‘hot property’ on the fauna grapevine had the squirrel mafia surreptitiously squat with impunity; one building a nest in my CD cupboard while the other opted for the higher storey of my UPS casing perched atop the cupboard!

We all begin our mornings together! The birds drop in frequently through the day for a wee dram of aqua while the squirrels practice their synchronous ballet routine tossing a glance in appreciation of this pleasant co-habitation arrangement.

Little did I realise then, that in addressing the ecology of my mind I had commenced a communion with ecology that hitherto remained present but invisible to me. Every day since, my garden teaches me new lessons; in ‘open source’ sharing, to participate in the spirit of community.

We need not more cellular towers that drive away the bees but more ‘watering holes’ that encourage the communion of flora, fauna and human and human with human!

The need of the hour is less the delusion of social networking that reduces our interactions to little windows on mobile gadgets and more the need to nurture local communities with ‘open source’ ecology of the mind.