Representative image for gardening
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When my daughter was a little over two, she spent most of her time with my father, who was a teacher at a government-aided high school. She imitated everything her grandfather did.
She inherited two good qualities from him. One was the habit of reading. She would sit by my father with books, magazines, newspapers, and even old almanacs for hours or scribble on papers with pens and pencils.
The second was gardening, my father’s favourite hobby. He spent hours in his sprawling garden, planting saplings, sowing seeds of different kinds, and tending to them every morning and afternoon. He nurtured his plants daily --watering, weeding, and loosening the soil. My daughter followed him everywhere, sometimes getting in his way. But my father always encouraged her to take part in his gardening.
One day, I noticed she was alone in the garden, as my father had gone to the market. He had instructed her to water the plants with the garden hose. After a while, I found her absorbed in digging the soil with a small khurpi (a tool for loosening soil) and pouring water with deep concentration. I guessed she was imitating her grandfather but left her alone lest she trouble me in his absence.
After a couple of hours, my father returned. No sooner had she seen him than she screamed with joy and ran towards him. She stammered, “Dada, Dada, I have sown a seed today.” Holding his hand, she pulled him towards the spot where I had seen her digging earlier.
My father was overwhelmed with joy to hear that the little one had sown a seed by herself. He lifted her in his arms and went to the spot, with me following behind. There was a small heap of soil, still wet. My daughter pointed to it with her tiny hand. We were convinced she had sown a seed.
Eager to know what she had planted, I gently brushed aside some soil --and our wonder knew no bounds when, instead of a seed, a candy in a laminated wrapper emerged from beneath the soil. My little daughter, in her innocent mind, was somehow convinced that whatever was buried in the soil would someday grow into a plant bearing its own fruits.
We burst out laughing, and she clapped in delight. I was about to throw away the candy, but my father stopped me. He covered it again with soil, and every morning after that, my daughter would water the spot and check whether her candy tree had sprouted.
My father is no more, but gardening remains my daughter's favourite pastime. She is now in class nine and often thinks of her grandfather. If he were alive, he would surely be happy to see mangoes, chikoos, and jamuns hanging from the trees she has planted herself.