Love thy plants

We have a daily ritual in the evening where my mother-in-law takes the practice of Geeta Adhyaay (lesson) from my son and then narrates a story to him. This happens via WhatsApp Video call almost every day. Yesterday she recounted a story to him, and I was also nearby and happened to listen to it. I was so moved by it that I decided to write about it on my blog. It also brought tears to my eyes, and then in the evening, I happened to see a program on television about an old man who had a similar experience as described by my mother-in-law in her story. And that was a sign again, two times, I had heard about the same emotion and sentiment. How can this be?

That plants also have behaved like people and had feelings like us?

It's long proven scientifically by Jagadish Chandra Bose that plants react to different stimuli. And this was proven yet again by two separate stories that I came across yesterday. My mother-in-law narrated about her friend, who had a large flower tree in her courtyard. It was in full bloom, had many branches, flowers, leaves, and fruits. It seemed very happy and pompous. As it was huge, it also soon spread to the neighbor's compound and onto his courtyard. He also got the flowers and fruits sometimes which were on his side of the tree.

But along with good things, also the dead leaves, branches fell into his compound, and he often got angry by it. He asked the owner of the tree many times to do the cleaning of the tree by cutting the other branches or the dead ones. She never found time and always postponed it to the coming weeks. She was having a bad day one day, and when she came home, her neighbor again pressed to trim the tree, and she lost it. She took a big pair of scissors and, without thinking twice, cut the branches zigzag and in a haphazard manner and made it small. She also said while trimming the tree that she doesn't need the flowers because they were a big nuisance. After realizing what she had done, she was sorry for it, but it was too late.

The only thing she could do was wait until it started growing again. She waited patiently, and within two months, the plant grew tall yet, but it didn't flower. She paused and expected, but still no signs of flowers. She didn't know what to do. The tree was growing in girth and length, but it didn't bear any fruits or flowers. A wise old woman told her to talk to the tree and tell it how she missed the flowers and how she was thankful for them. She could offer them to God, to neighbors, also to her friends who put them in the hair. But now as there were no flowers, she couldn't do anything. She also started telling things from her life to the tree and said sorry to it for behaving so roughly. Slowly the tree started coming back to its original self and started flowering and bearing fruits. Her joy knew no bounds, and from then on, she took extra care of the tree. 

Did the story move you? It moved me. I have immense respect for flora and fauna around my house, and I see to it that plants and trees are not harmed or troubled due to my behavior. It is also the reason that I don't have plants at my home because they are very delicate and require a lot of attention and care and love. One has to invest a lot of time and money in maintaining plants in Germany. Also, they are seasonal. Nothing grows in winter. One needs to have good knowledge about which plants thrive in summer, and I am still not up the curve and haven't taken the pains to inform myself on it. My mom had a lot of plants in Mumbai. She personally took care of all of them. But slowly with the water problem and inability to take good care of them, she gave them away and reduced the plants to almost none. My in-laws in Pune had a beautiful garden, but again the maintenance of it started becoming a concern. They reduced the number of plants and kept it to the bare minimum.

Another story that I saw yesterday on TV was about an old man who has many different lemon trees and talks to his favorite tree every day, and he thinks the tree returns his love and affection by rustling the leaves. The host who was hosting the show casually remarked it would be the wind. And the old man laughed it out and said, yes, most of them think so. But I don't. He was very sure that trees have emotions and that they respond to his talks and give him the best. 

Do you have any exciting stories to tell about plants? Do you have any personal experience with plants or trees?