Life throws us into unexpected events all the
time for me togetherness is that magic wand that prepares us to face
life as it comes.
Those golden days of yore are no more when people
had plenty of time to spare and share with their loved ones. This
resulted in an impeccable bonding that was cemented fast with the
glue of love caring and sharing and it was truly the real joy of
togetherness. Over the passage of time and with the advent of new
technologies specially the mobile phone time has become in short
supply. It is not that the time has started moving faster as the
clock still ticks at the same old rate but its only us the people who
are so busy that we do not have the time to bond and connect with all
those who matter,our loved ones, all those near and dear and our
neighbors.
I still remember that when I was a child the
members of our household had plenty of time to indulge in sharing of
information news and various activity. The evenings were the most
lively and interesting part of the day as I got to interact with my
grandfather who was a cloth merchant. With the falling of dusk he
came home and now it was time for me and him to spend some quality
time together. These moments of togetherness when he shared the
anecdotes of the day used to be the most prized moments for me that I
still cherish to this day. As night fell it was time for my
grandmother to tell me stories from the Ramayana. These moments were
full of her love and caring for me.
In those days we used to live in the walled city
of Delhi and the houses were so closely packed that had no space for
a real garden. My grandfather was very fond of gardening and seeing
my interest he ordered some pots and seeds. One evening when he came
home I found a man accompanying him with a donkey in tow. On one side
of the donkey was a sack full of soft yellow soil and on the other
side were brightly colored earthen pot. He asked me to fill the pots
with soft fertile soil which he had brought along with the pots. I
still remember the touch of that soft cool soil as filled the pots
with the soil that my grandfather had brought. He then took out a
packet of seeds from his pocket and showed me how to plant a seed by
making a small hole in the mud and putting a few seeds in it and then
covering it with mud. The final step was to water the pot. He
assigned to me the duty of watering the pots every day and advised me
to be careful and not flood the pots with water .These were the first
steps for me in learning how to grow and care for the plants. Now me
and my grandfather used to tend to our plants everyday and he asked
me to maintain a notebook to maintain and record the growth history
of the plant. When I saw the green first leaves emerge out of the
seeds I got very excited. I ran to my grandfather to give him the
news.
Apparently it was an ordinary natural process but
for me it was no less then shear magic unfolding before my eyes. In
the beginning we were the only two tending to the plants but slowly
we found all the family members gathering around us when we were
tending to the plants. Everyone got involved in this gardening
activity and this getting together was just like party time with lots
of smiles and jokes being shared. As I grew up I moved out from the
walled city now there was plenty of space but no time.
Life was now becoming mechanical and lacked the
warmth of togetherness. Now I realized that my life was losing its
touch with relationships. I thought that I must do something to
change this and as I remembered my childhood days when gardening had
connected the whole family together I went to the unattended plot of
land in front of my house into a garden. Watching me work in this
garden made the children of our family curious and soon they joined
me in my endeavors. I found that our gardening team grew in leaps and
bounds as the neighboring children too plunged into the activity.
Once the children got involved their parents also pitched in. I found
that this was a very good way of getting to know and interacting with
the neighbors. Due to the combined efforts the plants bloomed and
were loaded with fruits and flowers however for us these fruits were
not the only reward. We were also rewarded in terms of experiencing
the real joy of togetherness. Nature has helped us in securing a
perennial bond
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