It Takes a Village
Raising our Garden of Love —Mama and Papa Banda ft. Suguna
My parents really like plants. We’ve always had a lot of plants in and around our homes wherever we lived. They’ve toiled over them and taken care of them for years. Recently, my grandmother told me that there is saying in Telugu that translates loosely to ‘the grandchildren enjoy the fruits of their grandparents’ efforts with certain trees’. It may not be literally true, but she’s on to something. My grandfather planted a few trees in our backyard when our home was built twenty years ago and we’ve been fortunate to eat mangoes from our tree this summer. It took almost fifteen years for the tree to start producing fruits a few years ago. It’s a really long time to take care of something without seeing the fruits of one’s labour. I can’t help but think that it’s a beautiful expression of selfless love. So when one does see the result of one’s efforts, it is sweet!
The home that I grew up in Hyderabad has had a garden for its entirety, even when we didn’t live there. My grandfather started it all. Some trees survived and some succumbed to the rules of nature and because not all people loved them equally. While my parents were away, they missed their garden. They spoke about it longingly and hoped it was thriving. When they returned last year, my parents were reunited with what was left of their garden and knew they were going to revive it.
I believe that when one sets an intention and lets it out into the world, the universe conspires to make things happen. Almost as soon as my parents returned to Hyderabad, Suguna came into our home and our garden. Her main job was to help my mother but she became the commander-in-chief of the 2018 Banda Garden Revival Project. She decided what to plant, brought the seeds, and helped my parents plant them.
She started with tulasi a.k.a holy basil (Tulasi is a sacred plant for Hindus and most homes have it) and then that went on to plant chamanti chettu (chrysanthemum), kankambaram chettu (crossandra), tomatoes, eggplants, chillis, potatoes, onions, beans, cucumber, pumpkin, bitter gourd, turmeric, and a bunch of leafy vegetables like gongura (kenaf or roselle), bachalakura (vine spinach), and mint. Apart from these, my parents and Suguna took care of the coconut tree, mango tree, lemon tree along with the karavepaku (curry leaves), hibiscus, bamboo, and aloe vera plants that were already there. I didn’t realise the variety of vegetables we have in India until I started to look for their English names. Here’s a picture guide of 68 vegetables found in India. I’ll admit that I didn’t know a few of them.
I spoke with Suguna about her life and her love of plants a few weeks ago and she told me that she has loved plants and flowers since she was a child. Her parents were farmers and she helped them in their field and learnt the secrets of growing plants by observing them. Unfortunately, their family didn’t have a garden in their own home and Suguna decided to change that and created her own garden when she was 8. She remembers that her neighbours had a beautiful garden and she borrowed a few plants from there to start hers. She may or may not have asked their permission but nobody complained. The first plants she ever planted were a malle chettu (arabian jasmine) and a tulasi chettu (holy basil). Unfortunately, they had many animals at the house and they destroyed her plants. She didn’t give up and planted them again with measures to protect them. And thus began her life long love story with plants.
She asked her parents to send her to school, insisted even, but her parents didn’t see the value in educating their children (she made sure that all of her children graduated from English medium schools and colleges). After being married off at 12, she continued to spread her love of plants in her parents-in- law’s home. She planted sweet lemon, grapes, and sugarcane plants for years. When their family moved to the city for their children a few years ago, they found themselves living in a place without a garden. When Suguna started working for my parents and saw that they were beginning to grow a home garden, she decided to love it like it was her own.
Suguna picks up plants from wherever she can. She also believes in completing the circle and takes plants from our home to plant them in other people’s homes. She loves them with her life. Sometimes, she thinks she loves them more than her own children. She thinks they are quite similar to children too — needing a lot of support at the beginning and taking care of themselves and everyone around them once they reach a certain age. She believes plants turn a house into a home.
Suguna may be the chief of the village that’s raising our garden but there are other people that play very important roles. My father waters the garden every day without fail. We’re in the middle of a heat wave right now but that doesn’t stop him from taking care of the plants and the trees. My mother does a lot of the gardening and also makes the best use of what we get from the garden. She cooks with the produce, prays with the flowers, and decorates our home with the flowers and plants. We also have a caretaker, Ramchandar garu, who does a lot of cleaning up. This village takes care of the garden day after day, without a break.
Between the time I decided I wanted to write about the garden and by time I actually wrote it, Suguna fell sick. While she’s better now, her relationship with the garden may not continue for much longer. I know she’ll miss the plants and the plants her. But the others will continue to love them and Suguna will hopefully start another garden soon.
This summer, we had more than 100 mangoes and my parents made avakaya and maagaya (mango pickles) out of most of them. The pickles have traveled across continents and are being cherished by people in many places in the world. When my grandfather planted the mango tree more than 20 years ago, he didn’t think that the fruits would cross oceans.
All the people that raised the garden put in the work without knowing if they would ever see the results. They did it for the love of it. It does take a village to raise something beautiful, whether it’s a child or a garden. Here’s a note to my future self. Whether you are working on yourself or a project, ask for help, attract the right people, be grateful for them, work your hardest, and have patience because good things take time. When you finally see it for what it is, it will reflect everything that you put into it. It’ll be worth it!