Just Passing By

Esperanca – where I live – is fronted by a motley strip of green which passes for a garden in the concrete jungle (a stale metaphor which has yet to find an apt replacement!). In the hurried scurrying to and fro each day, this strip is granted a mere passing glance. The roadside view is not pretty as the grille and plants are always festooned with discarded paper and plastic donated by passers-by and the customers of the paan-bidi stall and bhelpuriwala. Reaction is a resigned grimace, acknowledging the fact that, in Mumbai, garbage is public property.

Out unexpectedly early in the day, I spied a neighbour sitting on the sun-lit garden bench, engrossed in a book, in calm contrast to the bustle beyond the grille. Intrigued, I decided to join him, and what a difference the change in perspective provided: we were suddenly enclosed in a green and peaceful world. Watching the passersby was like viewing a TV screen. The ‘actors’ were in touching distance and yet apart. The plants from this side seemed happier. Looking up, I realised that we were shaded by a spreading canopy of freshly minted, spring-green feathery leaves, which filtered the sunlight. I had passed under that tree a million times (no exaggeration!) and had never noticed! A couple of cats rolled up in their daydream snoozes and a family of chirpy sparrows completed the scene. And it took a man with his nose in a book to make me see all this!

Various vicissitudes have made us take potshots, over the years, at our building moniker. Now I realise how appropriate it really is. Because this early morning encounter made me see how waiting for each new dawn is a four-letter word: HOPE .

Further Thoughts on a Theme

Gardens are not just for flowers. They teem with ‘wildlife’ and my return to gardens of the past brought with it memories of other visitors, all of whom gave us pleasure – some by coming and others by going!

There were ladybugs, those red and black glossy beetles which are supposed to bring good luck in their wake. The preying (praying?) mantis which was ever so hard to spot. The chirpily happy crickets, unforgettably portrayed in ‘Grasshopper Green’ lisped by kindergartens and as the keeper of Pinocchio’s conscience (by Jiminy!). Butterflies of every size and hue, fluttering between petals and filling the air with colour. Bees buzzing away stickily while pollinating the next season’s crop. And who can forget the birds? There were tits, jays, mynahs, hoopoes (surely, there is humour in God’s creation) all displaying varying talent in conversation, song and dance. There was the owl who lived in the hollow of a tree and was probably the reason we saw no rats. The occasional peacock practicing his dance, feathers unfurled. The tree lizards, sleepy and lethargic, one eye open and the other closed. Every morning brought a glad reunion with the ‘denizens’ of this little world.

And so, too, the nights. Out came the glow-worms and fireflies. The frogs and toads, big and warty. They loved our verandah because the light attracted a multitude of insects and a veritable feast. Twilight resounded with call and answer and the cadence soon became a familiar pattern of evensong.

Yes, there were the not so nice visitors too. The creepy crawlies: centipedes, millipedes (locally termed blanket boochies), scorpions, snakes. All poisonous and all to be studiously avoided. They kept their distance and we kept ours, because here was space enough for each to have its own.

This was all in the time before digital cameras or even colour photography, and the ‘pictures’ are all in the mind, in riotous recall. Which is why I number among my best friends the writings of Gerald Durrell, who captures this particular world so invitingly and allows me to return, times without number, whenever I turn the printed page.

Today, a personal garden is a luxury granted to so very few. Public gardens, too, are a rarity. So, I look out eagerly for every patch of green at traffic junctions and apartment frontage. And I chat fondly with the pot on my window sill.