Our Garden

Durga Puja Photos

Outside view of the pandal

Maa Durga

Front view of the pandal

Goddess Durga

Goddess Durga

Ours lovely garden

Members of the Garden family

There are many plants in our garden. Roses, hibiscus, marigolds, jasmine, ashoka, dulan china, moon-beam, tulsi, curry leaves, poi, and sometimes some green leafy saga also add to the list. Recently, a bitter-gourd has joined the family of plants in our garden. Interestingly, these 31 pots complete the picture of a small but dainty garden in the top of a roof.

I will start with the roses, the flower which was so dear to Chacha Nehru that he would never forget to put one in his coat button and which is equally liked by almost all of us. Red roses of different texture are a wonderful lot and comprises of 9 different pots. Second are the ashoka flowers. They are favourites of my grandmother. Initially, we didn’t have them. It was only when my grandmother saw these wonderful bloomers in our neighbour that she decided to plant them in our own. Then there are marigolds and hibiscus of two different varieties each. There is also one dulan china which was gifted to us by our neighbour. They are white colour beauties. Tagara phoola i.e. moon-beam also adds to the beauty of our garden. Most of these plants found their place in our garden because of my beloved granny. Since she has grown old and is not so capable of taking care of them properly, I have joined her in nursing of these little beauties. 

Morning time

The mornings of my life, thus begins with watering them, taking out unnecessary weeds, taking out the insects that has glued themselves with the leaves and bugs feasting on the tender leaves, tying a broken branch and cleaning the floor, the last one is a task undertaken during holidays only. One thing I would like to tell is that these small activities are simple yet very refreshing. It makes my heart fill with much joy and happiness to serve them. When I give water I like to watch (mostly during holidays) the water being soaked into the soil.

It certainly is an exciting thing to watch the leaves sway in the gentle cool breeze. Though gardening has now become my hobby, this job is not like bed of roses.  They demand as much attention as a baby does. It makes me feel responsible for their correct upbringing. 

Throne in the garden

One little yet serious problem is the availability of the precious drops. Sometimes, the water does not come at punctual time. My poor little plants sometimes wait hungrily to fill their pots with water. Equally helpless is their caretaker, this they don’t understand. So, I would wait till our tank gets filled up with water and then it becomes possible for me to climb it and fill two buckets with water. This happens at one or two days in a month usually and at that time they all have to go for their fasting. With temperatures soaring as high as 43 degree it is not a wise choice but what other choice do they have? I would feel guilty for not taking proper care of them. But they are all very brave fighters and show their great patience and ability in handling the averse time as best as possible. Big lesson to learn from them, isn’t it?

Happy days again

They bring out beautiful, bright and colourful flowers and that is a sight to watch. Many small birds are regular visitors. They add music to the air. Butterflies too are welcome guests who hover from one flower to another making choice to sit. Further, one would also find pigeons that would come down to quench their thirst and pick any grains that they can find. Watching a new shoot to develop into tender braches with light-green leaves is heavenly. It is all together a different experience. They take away all my worries and stresses off me and make me feel divine. Nowadays, we don’t throw away the scraps from the vegetables instead my grandmother puts them on the pots so that the soil will remain cool. These things also act as humus for the soil.

Message from my little friends

From my humble mates I have learnt not to give up hope in life. There is always a chance for a better life, a better future if only we don’t lose our patience and learn to face the problems boldly. It will do us no good to shy away from them. Running away from them only encourages them to make us run more and simply does not bring out the much-needed-solution. Nobody said life would be easy. The simple thing is the harder we work the luckier we become.

Ralph Waldo Emerson had said, “There is no greatness in never falling but rising every time we fall.”

SAVE TREE. SAVE EARTH.

Winter season of mygolds and oranges

                  Winter season, I feel, is much better than any other season. Foggy mornings with weak and soothing sun rays, bright and colourful flowers blooming in gardens (it doesnot snow around here in bhubaneswar) and top with it, all those varieties of seasonal vegetables available (which makes my upma as colourful as the roses in our gardens, sweaters, scraps to hide ouselves makes me it as the complete season. And did i forget the oranges and grapes?

              I remember well, when I used to walk to school with my sister and Chandan, the three of us would blow air from our mouth so as to see it rise like mist and then vanish into thin air making us all feel like little wizards. Similarly, in my college days, we used to had morning classes and speeding our way on cycles with cold winds hitting our faces was exciting. Though I would be out of my house with plenty of time in my hand, I would stop at the ladies hostel in my way and help my sleeping beauty Megha to wake up (lazy bone, she would still be in her bed) and pack her bags and that would make the time fly away like a bird. But we were always punctual to reach college in time. Unlike others I would be the only one in our group of four. Brave and independent souls! But on the whole it was always fun to go in groups rather being the lonely travel. Many winters have passed in my life and i was soon doing my degree in computer science. Here we had little time to live our life with the sword of exams hanging on our head.

                Nowadays with global warming getting stronger the winters have all gone tupsy-turvy. But I enjoy the beautiful and charming flowers like roses, marigolds, hibiscus, dalia spreading their fragnace in the cold air.

               But one thing that I forgot to tell is that with all the comforts in my little home, winters do appear charming but they don't have a place in the heart of the less blessed poor souls.

"Seasons come and seasons go

Winter is the best, I do know

Flowers make the morning glow

Thank you Lord for such

a beautiful show."

My Experience of ragging

I came across the word ragging while I was going through the morning newspaper and that was how the lid of the memory box opened up and out flew through them my college life linked to that very word which is associated with fun, fear, amusement, pity, laughter, leg-pulling, friendship, amity, etc. Before that, it was in my seventh standard that I was first introduced to this word. It was unclear to me then, but now when I have already had many opportunities to taste its flavour; my doubts have evaporated like mist into thin air.

Six years back, I was a slim petite girl, quite shy and simple. It was my second day at the College of Basic Science and Humanities. After keeping my bicycle at the stand I chanced to meet another fresher, Lopamudra, we used to call her Lopa; her surname was Sahu (or Sahoo, I don’t remember.), which she never used. This improved my spirit as facing the unknown lurking danger, if any, would be quite easier now, after all unity is strength. We finished our formal introduction like which school we had studied, what subjects we had opted for and other small details within that trivial time period. She turned out be of my section and she had the same subjects that I had opted for. This quickened our friendship.

Together we went to common room which was meant for us- girls. It was a small room with one or two benches and the wall and doors were scribbled with phrases and names. I remembered one which went something like this- “You may love a heart that hates you, but never hate a heart that loves you” and there was another one written on the door of the bathroom – “If you dare, open.” Huuhh! Besides, there were some talking, laughing, gossiping, shouting seniors and a few whispering, silent, nervous juniors. My eyes were secretly searching for a seat. “There! I found it.” And before anybody would occupy it I sat myself down, making sure I was at a safe distance from the seniors (Was I? I was soon to find out.) and called for Lopa to sit beside me. Just I was getting comfortable, one of the seniors asked me, or rather I should say ordered me to stand up. I obeyed quietly and followed her instruction. She then asked me to put my bag down and stand straight. Though I was willing to stand up, I didn’t want to part from my new cool bag and put it down on that unclean floor. So I just stood still. She didn’t like that at all and shouted at my face, “Are you deaf? Can you not just follow what I said? Put that bag down, NOW. ”

Taken aback for such rude behaviour and with little idea about ragging, I shouted back alike, “WHY?” She was stunned. The room went silence.

“Did you hear that? This girl doesn’t know how to respect her seniors. She needs to be taught a lesson.” Sensing some trouble one of her friend whom I knew came forward to my rescue and explained me in a simple manner. Since it was time for their classes they had to hurry back to their classes, leaving us free again. But my friend Lopa told me that I should not have overreacted for such a tiny reason. I also felt the same. So the next day I just went up to her and told her sorry and that brought an end to the hatred, she had developed for me. With passing days we became good friends.

Late on, I came across many such instances where we were the centre of leg-pulling. I remember how we were made to sing rhyme and how I had chanted out “Twinkle twinkle little star” and my friend sang “Jack and Jill”, trying our best to avoid mistakes and how we were made to wish our seniors “Good morning sir” or “Good morning ma’am”, and then how one of the boy in our class was made to stand with his face to the wall and pose like Peter. He was, thus, christened with the name “Spider Man”. And how a boy who was in love with a girl was asked to tie rakhi in her hand and how some of the ragging grew sour and ended up with all the actions that I had watched in movies getting real.

But now I look back at those moments with nostalgia and strongly feel that healthy ragging should be encouraged as it brings folks together and unleash the senior-junior strip and bind them into great friends.

The other day I had an opportunity to visit the 'Adivasi Mela', the tribal festival with my friends. It was conducted with the joint venture of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute (SCSTRTI) and Academy of Tribal Language and Culture (ATLC).

Now, living in the twenty-first century amidst the din of the city life, glittering with the materialistic and pompous life, to meet simple, kind-hearted souls was something beyond our dreams. Unlike previous years the mela continued for a fortnight and thus drew thousands of eager people like a magnet.








Haat- The Weekly Market

The most interesting thing of this exhibition was the weekly market with the tribals, dressed in their traditional costumes selling various items. There were agricultural products like mandia (ragi), palua, sorisha (mustard), birhi (black gram), mooga dali (moong-dal), spices like red chili powder, haldi (turmeric), black pepper, cumin seeds, bamboo products like decorative items, household articles, teracotta items made up of clay, dokra items made up of brass, wax, non-toxic agarbatis, etc. were all selling like hot cakes. Who would like to miss the opportunity of buying pure things with any adulteration?

While solid and strong brooms found their place among the hearts of women, teenage and young girls were seen making a bee line for all those ethnic ornaments and decorative items.
Children were also fascinated to see the models of tribal people seen dancing, worshiping, gardening,etc. Foods cooked by tribals like modhi-mansa, various pithas, etc. drew all hungry and eager-to-taste-tribal-food customers.
The evening was marked with dances of the tribes of Bonda, Paudi Bhuniya, Gadaba, Oraon, etc. and songs and music. Thus this was one of the fun and joyful day of my life. At the end we were all rejuvenated and the magic spell of tribals had started. Our legs were unwilling to move return back to our sweet homes.