Adeniums

Today, I woke up at 5:30 am to the sound of rain outside. Not just a drizzle, but an earnest downpour. At first, lying all disoriented and sleep heavy in bed, I thought that it would be okay to skip plant evacuation. Especially for those darn adeniums that always need to be removed from rain and placed under some kind of shelter. But then, mom’s sad little face floated up in front of me. She loves her adeniums. Sometimes all I hear from her is, “Adeniums, adeniums, adeniums.”

She would be crushed if the water got to them. So I dragged myself out of bed before sunrise on a working day for a bunch of spoilt ass plants.

“Where are you going?” my sister’s hoarse voice floated out from the grey-blackness next to me. She was staying with us for a few days so we were bunking together.

“Going to save the plants,” I replied, trying to figure my way out in the dark.

“Need any help?” she mumbled.

I told her to sleep and made my way upto the roof. Despite taking the umbrella, it didn’t help. Because the adenium pots were too heavy to hold with one hand, so in the end I had to keep the umbrella aside and get wet while saving them. Mission completed, I was closing the roof door when Mom came up the stairs exclaiming in surprise.

“I’d decided to let them be in the rain today!” she said making a cute face and then hugging and kissing me. “You’re my angel.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. But it felt really good being called an angel.

“I didn’t want you to be sad about your adeniums,” I said, and had more love showered on me. Even sleep sozzled I was pleased to be adored thus at 5:30 am.

Back in the room my sister too said nice things to me though she was half asleep. Must admit, if I had to wake up at 5:30 am and run out in the rain for plants, it was great to be appreciated for it even if that wasn’t the intent with which I did it all.

Plant Evacuation Squad

1:15 am. The wind hissed outside in a manner that could mean rain or simply the rabble-rousing of leaves.

“Whenever there is a strong wind, go upstairs and place the potted plants on the floor of the roof from the ledge. They may fall off.”

This is what mom had told me one similar night, a few weeks ago.

So while some doors and windows banged within the house as prognostics of a storm, I stepped out of my room into the lobby at the same time my sister did. I explained our mission to her in short and recruited her trusty self to carry out evacuation of plants. In the mean time, mom, bleary-eyed emerged from her room as well to save her precious green babies.

Up on the roof a beautiful, fierce wind had been unleashed. Trees were swaying and swishing, sounds of things falling, crashing, breaking…the world alive.

“Put the smaller ones down first,” I told my sister as obviously I was in command and smaller creatures like herself looked upto me for instruction.

Our maid joined us too, and that was how four women found themselves up on the roof at 1:20 am, hurriedly placing plants down on the floor to save them from the gale. We saw a scurry of activity on some neighbouring roofs. Perhaps it was for the plants, perhaps for something else.

“Mom, you go and sleep,” I said. I might as well not have for all the effect it had.

Our maid seeing she had no role to play, just laughed and went off to sleep. After saving all the plants, my sister and I enjoyed the cold, angry wind for a minute before going to our respective bedrooms.

The storm was knocking on the doors, trying to open them. Outside there was a peculiar sound, it was a ‘hushhh’, a loud angry whisper. Ah, finally, there was the tell-tale patter of rain…I love nights like those. Also, I’m pretty sure this plant evacuation squad will be a thing! More on this soon.

Exposing Plants

I was discussing my new found interest in greenery randomly with a friend and we came to the conclusion that plants are dramatic as fuck. I mean what other living being starts to just die when it doesn’t like the way things are going? They probably go about thinking:

“You gave me too much water. BYE!”

“What the hell! You skimping on the water because I complained about too much water?! BYE!”

“It’s too much sunlight. BYE!”

“I’m a plant I need sun. BYE!”

What do you want you creature of extreme reactions? Can’t you develop a method of communication that does not involve killing yourself?

“My grandma used to make me water plants in the mornings,” Ku reminisced, “And everyday I would tell them, ‘You have to learn to be more independent.'”

She’s a bit of a crackhead really, this friend of mine.

“Also you must sing to the plants, and praise them, they like that a lot,” she continued knowledgeably.

“They’re so narcissistic!” I declared. “Like they want us to sing to them, entertain them, praise them and if they don’t like one thing they try to die on you. Dramatic and narcissistic!”

And to think they have the reputation of being innocent and passive creatures.

“My grandmother told me you could also fart on them to keep them healthy,” Ku continued, fondly.

“I — ” here’s where Ku transforms from crackhead to pro max crackhead 256 GB with help from her grandmother apparently.

“Yea, I’m not doing that,” I said firmly, “But, for now, I’m trying to keep my damn Poinsettias, Anna and Elsa alive. But it isn’t easy at all!”

“Maybe you could dance also?” she suggested.

I laughed, “They can’t see, they don’t have eyes.” Well they didn’t have ears either.

“Oh they have eyes, they just shut them when they see us,” Ku said, sagely.

This is usually how my conversations with her go. My belief in my own crazy imagination falls flat when I’m talking to her.

Okay, so far we’ve established plants are over-reacting, narcissistic beings that want you to entertain them through singing or dancing and like to be praised and also have eyes that they shut when they see us – ‘The Wierdos’ – coming.

How the fuck do I keep them alive?!

Anna And Elsa

This not a post about Frozen. Although it’s surprising that I haven’t written about it seeing as my love for the movie rivals that of Boo Bear’s four year old daughter.

This is a post about being tired of writing about sad things, and feeling sad too. There’s not much to be done about the feeling part, but let me write about something that brings me joy, subtle and mellow though it be, like a harmonising voice so low you wonder if it exists. Like sun in the winter, all golden and bright lifting up your mood but not really able to warm you up. So yes, I worked both similes in and now we can move on.

Two weeks ago, on a random whim, I spoke to Mom about going to a nursery. Perhaps it was the conversations with Boo Bear about her trips to the nursery coupled with the knowledge that Mum loves plants and has green fingers that brought it up. For my part, I am not good with green life. I still don’t know what happened to the last plant I had.

The nursery was chilly, the air there moist. A tiny square of land filled with bags of fertilisers, quaint pots – both the usual ones and ones that could be hung placed in sheds around, and of course rows and rows of plants. We walked while avoiding the mulch to have a look around.There was a wet sheen on the green leaves, beautiful babies of a whole other kind. Winter made flowers rare but it didn’t matter to me. They were living beings so different from us, so incapable of hurting me the way humans do every day. They just live in a healthy, vibrant way when happy, that’s all. They also start dying off when unhappy or stressed…er…but again they don’t wilfully hurt others. Apart from fertiliser for plants back home, and some pretty flower pots, Mom bought two pretty Poinsettias in pots. The vivid red leaves atop the green ones, the perfect Christmas plant bought in January. At the time I had no idea Mom would hand them over to me to take care of.

Now they sit on my balcony as I fret over them. Did they get enough water? Does it get too cold for them at night? Are they getting enough sun? Why are some of the leaves not okay? Mom told me not to worry as they looked fine. I put them on the balustrade anyway when there’s sun, and put them a little inwards on the balcony floor so they aren’t too exposed to the dew. I was worried that they might have infection so put some turmeric on the stalks and leaves (it’s an old home remedy as turmeric has antimicrobial properties). I also do the cliched thing of singing to them while watering them. For now, for whatever reason I keep singing, “My Girl” by The Temptations. Somehow just seems like the right song. I wanted to name them something cool and yet full of gravity – I settled on Sarah and Bridget – names of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials – women who ought to have their names associated with something lovely and good too. Feeling cool, I just knew my Poinsettias were destined for greatness.

Next day when I tried to think of their names, I mentally stuttered over them. Neither of my plant babies felt like a Sarah or a Bridget. So now they’re Anna and Elsa. The bond that’s in tatters in real life for me could flourish with my plants couldn’t it? They are sister plants, taking care of one another, not tearing one another down.