The Garden

The wicket gate was always open. Today she had no shopping, just her handbag, so she felt freer as she walked slowly along her usual path. Cross the walkway, onto the pavement, under the champa tree (but these flowers didn’t have the heady perfume of those back in India), across the car lane to walk along the clerodendron hedge.

There was a bulbul, and another. They were flying onto the short, stocky trees that succeeded the white-flowered clerodendron along the walkway. There were berries on the trees, green ones which were ripening into blue-black ones now. The bulbuls were busy eating the berries, so they must be quite edible – her mother had taught her that if the birds ate any fruit, it had to be non-poisonous. She could ask one of the gardeners what tree it was. Everything was done so carefully here, they were bound to have entries of everything they grew.

The birds also ate the dates that were ripening now, but not as many went for them as she would have expected. Maybe they didn’t like them. A couple of mynahs did peck at the dates sometimes, but even they were more interested in strolling jauntily about the lawns, looking for insects in the grass. There were the sparrows, of course, twittering everywhere, and one or two officious crows – even when their number was scarce, here in Dubai, they were bossy, she thought.

It was so pleasant to walk through the garden of Maktoum Hospital. Even the few minutes it took for her to get in at the gate from the front and out of the exit gate at the side into the narrow and perpetually crowded street known as ‘‘behind Maktoum Hospital’’, where she lived; even that brief while was soothing, and she looked forward to returning, just to savour this little walk in the evening through the cool, green, flowering oasis.

In one corner of the garden was a tulsi plant. Strange, she often thought, that in this place full of decorative plants there should be one that was not strictly pretty, nor a beautiful flower bearer or a fruit tree. The tulsi was so soothing to look at, though, if only because it reminded her of the one in the garden at home.

Home. It wasn’t how she thought of the little studio flat she was going back to now. Home was the house on the hill which she loved. The garden, the oasis of calm with cats, flowers and her parents quietly going about the business of life. She used to water the tulsi first of all, then the other flowers, the white ananta, the richly coloured mirabilis which bloomed at 4pm, the canna lilies and then the crotons and vines. She would spray water over them and smile as they nodded their heads. Her mother used to say that the flowers were nodding with happiness at being watered. There must have been a scientific explanation, but they definitely did nod. At her. And she nodded back, projecting her happiness to them – the happiness she derived from them, so that it was a gentle, symbiotic rhythm that went on, the breeze, the delicate scent of the flowers, the droplets of water trembling on the leaves and the petals, her joy and theirs.

Now, here. Did these men feel like that? Tears started in her eyes at the sharp, sudden memory of what she had left behind, tears that stopped before spilling out. The tulsi plant did not ask much, she thought. Just a little water, and it healed, soothed and calmed. Tiny flowers, tiny tiny ones, barely seen but pale purple to the eye that cared to look. And tiny insects to rush around pollinating busily.

Her steps slowed. They kept changing the face of the gardens in this place. Suppose this one too was made over, and the tulsi uprooted? She hadn’t seen one anywhere else, it was obviously an aberration, perhaps planted quietly by a homesick gardener. What would she do if they replaced the tulsi?

There were few people in the garden. Only one gardener was visible in a far corner, his back to her. She crossed over to the tulsi and bent to look at it. Proud little brown spears were full of mature seeds. She snapped off a few and put them into her handbag. With enough care, shade from the fierce desert sun and plenty of water, they would grow in a pot, perhaps on her kitchen windowsill. At least one seed would sprout, an exile far from home like her.




(First published on buzzzar.com.)