Delicate Yellow

I scattered some mustard seed and look at what I’ve got!

Some of my plants had outgrown their homes and new pots were called for. I picked up three instead of the needed two. The spare pot took care of the leftover mud and manure and sat on the grille – a daily reminder that I needed to visit the local nursery.

Prompted by the many biblical references that kept cropping up, I thought, ‘Why not scatter some mustard seed and see what happens?’ Every Indian kitchen possesses mustard seeds which go into a number of dishes and so I fetched a handful and scattered it over the surface of the wet mud. Daily watering and much patience saw a few tentative shoots poking through. They looked so fragile that I did not expect them to survive. But they grew – delicately and long – sending out green leaves every now and then. And then, yesterday morning, I spotted the buds. Today, the tiny bright yellow blooms greeted the sun and me.

So delicate, so delightful, so rewarding!

Life without water?

Let’s start with hands. Hands need to be washed. But now we can dispense with soap and water as herbal purifiers have found their way to market – all it needs is a drop from a bottle for germ free hands.

The face? Wet wipes should suffice. The body? How about a common bath in the swimming pool or pond, or lake? Did I hear ‘ugh!’? It looks like it is coming to that and soon. We’ll also need disposable clothes and household linen. Pity the White Goods market, washing machines will be obsolete!! Chemical, waterless toilets already exist outside our homes but maybe that’s where we need to install them, too. Soon, we’ll be one large Starship Enterprise – an earthbound one. Imagine, everything at the touch of a computer screen and no water required! Or maybe we should just shift to Rajasthan. They’ve lived without water for years.

Which brings me to my happy Ixora: she needs her water (pink for a girl and therefore the ‘she’). The water we receive in our taps is a muddy slurry replete with worms, dead insects and leaves. Certainly unfit for human or animal consumption. So, I have now invested in a row of happy potted plants who receive their quota of incidental ‘fertiliser’. And they are thriving. There is some justice in the saying that poison for one is food for another!

And one last thought to speed you on your day: life without water means time to blog!