In the month of May this year, I noticed something very unusual in my exotic bamboo plant, which was expensive because it looked grand and had beautiful slender leaves. Bamboo is a grass that multiplies very quickly because of its running roots. It has grown considerably huge and majestic in the last 4 years and is one of my favourites. I noticed it had begun to bear flowers!! I have other older varieties of bamboo too which have never boomed! So how was this one flowering?
My maali confused me further saying that this was not a good omen. In the villages when bamboo blossomed, it was a sure sign of some calamity befalling, like a flood or drought! Delhi summer this year was surely a calamity! However, the second bad news, according to Google baba was that this was going to be the end of this magnificent tree because bamboo only blooms before its death!!
I have been an avid gardener for donkey’s years…never heard of any negativity emanating from these green therapists! However, I prayed and used my instincts. I chopped off the flowers which had rice like seeds in them. It soon shed all its leaves and seeing it brown and leafless, my heart wept as if mourning the death of a loved one.
However, a few days later, my happiness knew no bounds when I saw new green baby leaves sprouting all over the dry twigs. No, it was not dying but rising from its ashes like the phoenix! As if this was not reward enough, my heart leapt with joy on seeing new baby plants emerging from the rice like seeds that had fallen below. Couldn’t thank God enough. It bore flowers, did not die, no catastrophe happened…on the contrary…the mother plant grew thicker and now has hundreds of babies. Lessons learnt… Trust your instincts… not what the world says!
