Orchid, The May Flower (Wesak Orchid)

Orchid, The May Flower (Wesak Orchid)

I admire the British Gardeners for their dedication.

I do not have the same patience but my dear friend has. 

This is the story about him not me.

There was one in UK who cared for a dwarf (Pygmy) palm, barely 4 feet tall after 40 years.

One needs meditative mindset and attention for such a task.

Plants can sense and they have more senses than we possess.

If one stops caring for a particular plant, it goes into self imposed hibernation, quite different from perennial hibernation.

My story stretches over 65 years or so.

The plant or the orchid belonged to my father.

I can remember it bloomed several times when my father was alive but it never did after his demise.

Why?

I do not know but my guess now is that it got attached to my father's delicate care which I could not reproduce.

Story goes like this.

He had a lovely orchid house donated to him by a Scottish gentleman who left this country, with the ushering of the Nawa Ugaya (It should be said the Gon Pora Ugaya -decline in values that has reached its zenith now, with bond scams taking shape) in 1956.

We were residing near Kurunegala, then, warm and humid enough for orchids.

The Wesak orchid was collected from a nearby forest where a murder victim (young girl) was hung after the gruesome killing.

The story concocted was to appear as accidental hit and run by a car (but a rape victim, all the same).

Even as a kid, rather a brat, my mind not fully developed forensically could see through the maze, the lies and deception at that time, it was a murder.

 

Coming back to the orchid story, we had to shift to Kandy my birth place due to circumstances beyond my father's control, who did not wish to move.

Ultimately,we did with all the orchids and it needed a orchid house ( 6 feet by 6 feet by 10) built.

This would have been the sore points of my near relatives but I ignited it with a total obnoxious act of hitting my mother's elder sister with a firewood (she was a very sweet lady) for her husband abusing my father.

My father did not utter a word.

His police training during second world war had made him to be non provoking.

I did not do any good on reflection for his act of calm.

So before this aggravated total warfare he decided to move to a rented house.

That house was so tiny without a garden we could not move the orchid house.

So he donated it to a distant relative of ours whose son was my big brother friend (taught me how to make a kite).

He was a very nice guy youngest in the family very well abused by his elder sisters and brothers but all the same a tough guy.

No man or guy would touch me, if he was nearby.

He was sort of a private body guard.

He tells me now, he admired me for my mathematical skills even as a kid.

Me ending as a doctor was an accident (I say it was a clerical mistake by the education department).

This guy who is 90% blind for over fifty years looked after the orchid plant for my father.

Most of the other orchids died a natural death over the fifty years.

But he had a fierce attachment to the Wesak orchid, (even though it did not blossom after few blooms).

Last time, I went to see him, the orchid was in poor shape, being blind he could not detect the problems and the global warming contributing to its slow but sure death.

I told him it is in bad shape and requested a piece for safe keeping as it were.

I am not an expert on orchids and I could name only three or four, Cattleya and Kandyan dancer are the only namesakes, I can remember, now.

My current favorite is big Vanilla NOT the Vanda.

I did not have the patience of a British Gardner anyway.

I borrowed a piece about 15 years ago, but it did not last an year.

It was good fortune I did take a sapling.

When I visited the next time my friends plant had gone for good. 

It died a natural death.

I became obsessively attached to the one I had, which was hidden in my roof top water garden.

Few days ago, when I was watering the plants, I noticed the orchid was in bad shape, again.

Fully exposed and the cement heating up it was near peril state.

All this morning with some clever arrangement, I did find a hiding place for it.

I have placed my water plants in a cascading pattern of arrangement.

Plants needing little water on the top and the plants needing shade and an abundance of water at the bottom and the Bonsai tree cover in between.

It took two hours for me to rearrange, so that the orchid was well protected and enough humidity around it.

Other two specimens, I have were kept as its companion neighbors.

I offered to give him a sapling when it sprouts to my friend and he politely refused.

What will happen to this orchid and its descendants after my demise?

It is an open question.