Budding talent
You wouldn’t think so, but the capital is bursting at its seams with the good intention of ladies bent on improving upon nature. They meet frequently and with dedicated purpose, devoting their days and lives to growing the perfect pumpkin, creating the ultimate floral arrangement, finding the right vase, or twig, or branch, pebbles and baskets. Around a score years ago, my wife joined one such club — reluctantly, I might add — having, at the time, not a very high opinion of those whose only purpose in life appeared to hinge on calculating the appropriate distance between three blooms to recreate the relationship between heaven (the sun and the moon, methinks) and earth.
Over the years, her enthusiasm blossomed. She joined kitchen garden associations that spoke for the city as well as groups that confined themselves to residential pockets; she became a member of societies local, national and international. If one met in the morning, another had a get-together in the afternoon. There were annual competitions, judgings, prize ceremonies and demonstrations. When their timings clashed, she had the painful decision of choosing one over the other — causing friction within her swelling group of ghaasphoos acquaintances. You risked alienating the lady from the lane thrice removed who was good for a car pool, but was likely to be offended to discover my wife was fraternising with the oharians when she ought to be socialising with the suigetsuians.
For, it was ikebana that most challenged her logistics. New Delhi has its ikebana specialists and clubs. But if you thought it was enough for the ikebana ladies to battle it out for laurels amidst themselves, you would be mistaken, the main rivalry being reserved for the protagonists of its two schools — dating back not months, or years, but centuries. That it even existed was something I was unaware of till this morning, eavesdropping on a conversation in the car, I heard my wife say, “I’m off to a suigetsu meeting but, actually, I’m an ohara loyalist.”
Now if, like me, you don’t know a bough from a branch, you wouldn’t have the foggiest idea the red flag a comment such as this might raise, especially if the lady you’re so informing happens to be a suigetsu loyalist — for, just as the West is West and the East is East, never the twain shall meet. It is considered impolite to be a member of both schools simultaneously, thus posing issues of loyalty to one or the other. No wonder my wife’s pronouncement was met with frigid silence. I foresee further car-pooling likely to face a hurdle in the foreseeable future.
Not that ohara or suigetsu will want take credit for my wife’s inability to balance an arrangement. She spends hours poring over the right leaf, or cluster of berries, with which to balance an arrangement, but her attempts end up keeling over, the drooping flowers lacklustre — appearing scanty rather than in harmony. Nor are we short of such instances, most tabletops at home a testimony to her perseverance if not her talent in which both suigetsu and ohara stand compromised. There might come a day when a floral arrangement at home will look the way nature intended it to — for now, though, my wife is succeeding in showing us the way climate change will impact nature.