Papa
and the Lemon tree
Papa loved
every plant and tree in his garden. It was one of those hobbies which both my
parents shared with equal passion.
When we
moved to our own house way back in 1982, they very enthusiastically began to
plant all kinds of fruit trees along with a variety of flowering plants,
creepers, succulents and a sizeable kitchen garden. We grew most of our leafy
vegetables, had enough of tomatoes, brinjals, beans, carrots, gourds, lady
fingers, papayas, guavas and what not. What ever we planted, it bloomed and
reached fruition soon enough. Not only did we have enough for ourselves, we
were soon sending vegetables and fruits to our neighbours as well.
But there
was this one lemon plant. It just won’t grow. Each season it added probably about
two or three more branches.
Somebody told us to bury dead fish under the plant to make it grow faster. Now that was a challenge for us vegetarians. We screwed up our noses and brought the cheapest fish from the fishmonger. Our vegetarian gardener also screwed up his nose but dug under the tree and buried the fish. We tried this remedy every two or three months for maybe two years. But to no avail.
One of our
well intentioned and all-knowing neighbour told us that we need to pull out the
plant and replace the soil entirely. We did that also.
Another
naturalist suggested we should spend time with the plant, talk to it to uplift its
mood. Entire family was encouraged and at times forced to go and talk to the
plant. But the adamant lemon tree would not oblige.
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We were all
grief stricken when our pet dog Tikka died. We buried the poor animal under the
lemon tree hoping to provide some more nutrition.
But now we
realised we needed professional help. So, one day we invited a horticulturalist
acquaintance for a garden party and casually asked him for some advice. Growth
hormones was the answer. Off we went to buy some of that. But alas, all our
efforts were wasted.
Over a period of seven years not only did the plant come barely up to my knees, there had rarely been any flowering either. We were at out wits end. We began to give the plant angry looks every time we brought lemons from the market.
Finally,
papa lost his patience, walked over to the plant and called out to the
gardener, “I have had enough. Chop up the lemon tree and throw it out. I will
get a better variety from Ahmednagar on my next trip”.
No one paid
much attention to the lemon tree after that. In fact, the gardener would often forget
to even water it.
After around
a fortnight, while I was admiring some butterflies, I noticed they moved to a
whole bunch of flowers on the lemon tree.
“Papa, papa.
See your scolding worked”, I shouted excitedly.
Soon, there
were almost a dozen little lemons hanging on the branches and although the tree
never grew very big, we had at least a hundred lemons each season and it soon
became the most fruitful tree in our garden.
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