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.
