Things That Bang

My garden is a neglected plot of land. Corporation water stopped coming a few months back and we went back to getting water from tankers. My green fingers dug into container gardening and the land was neglected in favor of clay and plastic pots.

Winter passed, spring came and I let the leaves of trees lie on the land. They acted as natural mulch against weeds. I would look out of the window and see the good earth get buried. Plants died and I felt bad but there wasn't much that I could do.

Today I decided to take a walk on the land and as my feet crackled on the leaves I came across something red berry-like jutting out of the leaves. Strawberries?! Couldn't be. On closer inspection they turned out to be cherry tomatoes. There was a vine growing somewhere under the leaves.

I dug through the leaves and found the vine. Tomato plants love the sun but this vine had grown despite the cover of dead leaves and under the shade of a mango tree. Its survival against all the odds pitted against it was remarkable and gave credence to the story my grandfather told me decades back.

I came from a family of achievers. My parents had successful careers and my sisters were toppers at school. I on the other hand, was the proverbial black sheep. Easy to anger and bad at studies.

I had come to accept my lot. I was the odd one out, the sore thumb, the kid who always caused her parents worry and there was no way I could change but my grandfather one day grabbed hold of me.

He told me of a story of a farmer who tilled the land and threw seeds on the ground. Most seeds grew on smooth well turned soil one however found itself buried under a tiny pebble. Few days passed and the seeds germinated but this one seemingly didn't and by the time the other seeds had reached the three leaf stage the one stifled under the pebble finally sprung up a small little shoot. It had gone around the pebble and made it. Its struggle was remarkable.

He looked at me meaningfully with his electric blue eyes and I looked back glumly. He obviously in his wisdom wanted to convey that those with determination would make it no matter what and I in my youthful ignorance didn't like the fact that life didn't deal equal cards to all.

The two little cherry tomatoes brought it all back. I looked around my shabby seemingly dead garden with new eyes. It wasn't dead. In some nooks and corners it was surging through despite my deliberate neglect.

The banana tree branch bending down with growing fruit, baby roses had blossomed on my rose rambler which hadn't flowered for two years and ornamental grass was turning green around the tips. The April showers though far and between had brought life back to my garden in bits and pieces.

Sure, life is not fair; nature is not fair and yet it gives its children the gift of resilience and determination. There is no- 'why me?' in nature. You either make it or you don't. There will always be odds stacked against us one way or the other but we have to make it on our own pace and in our way.

I hadn't liked my grandpa's story because he had ended it by telling me that the seed had grown into a plant healthy but shorter than others. The farmer hadn't cared and reaped it like he did others.

Somehow I couldn't pluck those cherry tomatoes. The struggle couldn't be negated, not of that little seed, of the tomato plant or that of my grandfather's life.