Growing plants or even the fact of ‘gardening’ has never been my cup of tea and since childhood the whole idea of sprouting beans like mustard, rajma, chickpeas or any other kind of sprouts has always annoyed me, honestly the last time I remember doing this was in school.
As a child I never bothered much about nature or the world but just myself, growing these sprouts after what seemed like ages did bring back the old memories but this time it was different. The fact of taking care of a plant is something not as easy as it seemed back in the old days, the fact that it was so annoying was because of the reason that one needed patience, focus and diligence and with that the constant will power of rigorous precision. Waking up early morning I would water the plants, come back home from college and check on them in the evening. Yes, this was a monotonous event that had become an integral part of my life but it sure was enchanting and the best part of my interim. Words are not enough to describe the kind of bond one creates between you and the sprouts but according to me it was more of a symbiotic relationship.
A relationship not only involving the basic needs of water but the needs of emotions like trust, care, affection and cherishing each and every part of knowledge one exchanges between the two such organisms, us and the plants. One reason could be that I recognized them equal to us as individuals rising to maturity or maybe the fact that I considered them as organism who deserved respect and nurturing, after all doesn’t both of our genesis lies in nature itself?
This blogpost was written by Kshitij Chaudhuri (Industrial arts and design practices student) as a part of his assignment for Ecocentric where he dived deep inside to acknowledge his feelings on environment.