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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Mint-on-sunday/  Letter from... that bald spot in my garden
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Letter from... that bald spot in my garden

Gardening is not easy. Seriously.

Photo: AFPPremium
Photo: AFP

You know all those jokes about Malayalis in the Gulf? About how Dubai is the westernmost of India's states? About how I have a family friend whose daughter is named Gulfy? 

Actually that last bit isn't a joke. Gulfy if you are reading this... Hello! 

Many people are quite surprised when I tell them that the 16 years I spent growing up in Abu Dhabi were entirely normal. I have only the most pleasant memories of a childhood that was, in as far as such things can be normative, very, very normal.

We grew up in a nice house, went to a decent school, ate mostly home-cooked Kerala food, had lots of family friends, went on weekend trips during the summer holidays, ate ice-cream in the summer, went to St. Joseph's Church once a week, prayed, read, played, ate, fell over things, made friends, made enemies, recited poetry during school assembly, passed exams, failed exams and so on and so forth. 

Of course that is not to say this was the case in general. Then, and now, hundreds of thousands of men, mostly they are men, from South Asia and other parts of the world toil in hideous conditions as masons and plumbers and construction workers and so on. The condition of these labourers remain an indelible stain on the soul of most of these Gulf nations. Indeed, I have at least two close relatives who have spent at least some time living in labour camps and working till their back or minds broke, whichever came first. 

I have vivid memories of our house serving as something of a place of rest and recuperation for many of these men. On weekends our front door would stay open as 'uncle' after 'uncle' trudged in carrying little chocolates in brown paper bags. They ate hot meals, had a few good drinks, caught up on all the politics and gossip.

My mother, bless her soul, plied these men, many of whom saw their families back in Kerala no more than once every two or three years, with mutton cutlets and fish curry and chicken fry all served with mountains of rice and plastic bags full of samuna or khuboos (little soft baguettes or Arabic flatbreads). 

Things change, of course. As everyone started to make more money such unmeasured, unaudited relationships began to turn into obligations. But not everything is forgotten. Halfway through my sister's wedding reception earlier this year, my dad picked up his phone and called up Suath Khan, a rugged Pathan man who still works with my dad's old employer in Abu Dhabi. Suath Khan is the exactly as you picture him. Big, strong, indestructible. We spoke for a long time. You see Suath Khan used to drive me to my kindergarten classes. And in his eyes I am still that child. 

What the desert sun cannot destroy, it sets in stone. 

But I digress. So the bald spots in my garden. Growing up in the Gulf, one has an odd relationship with flora. All the plants and flowers you see are ornamental. Everything grows in straight lines. Perfectly manicured. Flowering plants were perfectly sown to ensure colourful blooms every day of the year. The lawns were always mown. Nothing grew, as it were, without the necessary permissions and approvals. 

And then you went to Kerala for your summer vacations and noticed that nothing, not the people nor the plants, grew in straight lines. Our ancestral home sat in the middle of... A National Geographic special issue. Something grew everywhere. Everything grew somewhere. Coconuts, betel nuts, black pepper, frogs, grasshoppers, spiders, earthworms the size of snakes, snakes the size of earthworms, bats, palm civets and even, once, a flying squirrel that drove the entire village into apoplexy. 

Two months in Kerala, where nobody had time for ornamental agriculture, utterly transformed my engagement with nature. Plants and flowers and trees were not things to look at but thing to interact with and transform and adapt to. Dried palm branches became cricket bats. Bits of bamboo became wickets. Dried coconut shells became moulds for sand castles. Dragonflies, things that terrified us fresh off the Air India flight, became fascinating playthings by the time we were ready to go back. 

So I thought, as I grew older, that I had seen it all as far as flora was concerned. The wild and the domestic. 

And then I moved to London. And moved into a house with a garden. And things have changed all over again. You see I have no idea what any of these British plants are. Is that a weed? A flowering plant? A berry? I have no idea. So every once in a while the neighbour comes over—her gardening Kung Fu is strong—and helps me. 

Is that a weed? 

What? No Sunny. That is a Spanish Diphtheria. Beautiful flowers. 

OK. And this hideous monstrosity is definitely a weed? 

Good god no. That is an Aalumadoluma. It will look amazing in the autumn. 

What is autumn? 

Really, I am struggling with the stuff. But one must soldier on. So right now I am focusing on the bald spots in the lawn. There are several. The trick, I am told, is to sow seed directly into the spots, and then water meticulously, whilst applying lawn fertilizer every two weeks. Wait for substantial growth before mowing. And then once the bald spots are covered over, I am to overseed the entire lawn to make the whole thing nice and luscious. 

Like the lawns in Abu Dhabi. 

It is bloody hard work. Coconut palms are so much easier to grow.

Letter From... is Mint on Sunday’s antidote to boring editor’s columns. Each week, one of our editors—Sidin Vadukut in London and Arun Janardhan in Mumbai—will send dispatches on places, people and institutions that are worth ruminating about on the weekend. 

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

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Published: 24 Jun 2017, 11:32 PM IST
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