Transplantation

It's not the same sky

I had been to a place on the seashore a few years back. It was June. The sky was cloudy with occasional showers. All day long we roamed on the deserted wide sea beach and then on the river banks, all the while clicking away merrily. Capturing what you see in a photo frame satisfactorily feels great. We felt like caged birds set free in the open sky. Enjoyment was thorough. On the day of departure, we confined our morning photo session to the garden of our lodge.

 

Kashful

Our stay was in a two storied lodge with a large garden area. Most of the greens were grassland. The grass had grown now with slim stalks holding white flowers. It is a type of Kashful. During the autumn, our grasslands used to be transformed into beautiful shoulder high white carpets by the proliferation of Kashful. Here on the seashore it is a shorter variety but nevertheless as beautiful. Somehow I never ceased to love these white carpets of grass flowers. 

Rangan

Reaching home at Kolkata the first thing I did was to dig a proper hole in the small fenced patch of so-called garden bordering the courtyard myself and place my Rangan gingerly into it, shoving the loose earth back and finally sprinkling just enough water on the base of the plant. I was quite anxious about the plant and instructed the security guards at the nearby gate to look after the plant and provide it with daily water at least. Over a week I visited my Rangan every day, then the frequency of visits reduced and finally after a few months occasionally I remembered it and immediately went to it to find it still alive.

A year later as I stood in my balcony, I remembered the Rangan and craned my neck to see it. I could see the patch of garden but not the plant. Quite worried, I went down hurriedly to the spot and was very happy to find it not only alive but healthy for the first time. During all my earlier visits I found it weak, either not grown enough or its leaves not sufficiently green and fresh. This was the first occasion I found it full of pale green young shoots and lush green leaves. It had also grown in height. I felt content. At last my Rangan, uprooted from its natural home a year back, brought into the jungle of concrete and steel, planted on this patch of unfriendly soil, finally adapted to its new environment and stood up on its own feet so to say.

I got busy in my own affairs again.

A year passed before I remembered it on a cloudy day. When I visited the Rangan, I couldn’t believe my eyes at first—it has flowered, my Rangan is adorned with flowers at last! Then I looked closely at the flowers. Isn’t it red I see? Yes it is certainly red, but a pale red like the pale blue sky of my city. The plant is same but the place where it is transplanted is different.

I had to finally admit, you can uproot a plant and take it along with you in your car to your distant city, but you can’t take its color with you.