Kitchen garden, a haven for meditative thoughts

Ihave no particular fondness for plants, whether outdoor or indoor. I have never bothered to look into the tending or maintenance of the lawn inside or the garden outside. Occasionally, I take a look at the garden only to admire the myriad seasonal blooms spreading cheer around.

Many friends and relatives would take immense pleasure and pride in boasting about their perfectly manicured lawns, their collection of potted plants with varieties ranging from ferns to cacti to bonsais. There is a particular category of friends who show special inclination in the exhibition of their vegetable gardens and leave no stone unturned in the pageantry of their 100% organic, home-grown produce.

On my part, I preferred to turn a blind eye to such enthusiastic posts on social media. Botany was my Achilles’ heel even in college and so the world of greens evoked little response. However, the lockdown unveiled another facet of life, which was novel to me. To my surprise, the kitchen garden became a place of solace where I turned to meditate and organise my thoughts.

During the initial days of the lockdown, our family decided not to buy vegetables from the market and try to make the best of the kitchen garden. So, one day I ventured into this little enclosure reserved for vegetables to forage for the day and this little expedition turned into a life lesson.

The absence of the gardener had resulted in slight neglect of the place and thus the herbs and shrubs had over grown into an entangled mess. However, in the midst of the chaos, I found nature nourishing its inhabitants. The ripe red tomatoes and the unripe green firmer ones presented a jubilant scene that was nothing less than “immutability in flux”. A little further, the green mint was spreading its aroma that tingled my olfactory nerves as I gathered a bunch in my basket.

This first visit gave me an exquisite feeling and my forays to the kitchen garden became frequent and regular. I now looked forward to my trips as looking at the different varieties of leaves, the serrated, the dentate and the lobed ones, gave me surreal pleasure. Every day, I earmarked the young ‘bhindis’ on their stalks and tried to calculate the days it would take to grow to an appropriate size when I would be able to pluck them. Standing around in the little haven surrounded by cucumber and bitter gourd vines, I experienced nature’s magnificent working, filling every little seed with just the right amount of strength to grow to its potential.

My reflexive thoughts made me understand that nature gives every being the power to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. Man in his arrogance, tends to depart from the path suggested by nature and looks for his satisfaction in an ill-created world urged by his own desires and aspirations. With this new and changed attitude, I now look forward to sowing seeds for next season’s produce.

Life may be undefined for the moment with Covid creating chaos all over, yet nature has its own way of exhibiting the fact that life goes on and despite the chaos, the old order changeth, yielding place to new. It’s time for my meditation. So, I’m off to my little sanctuary to gather some more green thoughts.

NATURE GIVES EVERY BEING THE POWER TO BE SELF-SUFFICIENT AND SELF-RELIANT. MAN IN HIS ARROGANCE, TENDS TO DEPART FROM THE PATH