Bounty
The monsoon is almost done. Three months of erratic exercise, soul food, mildew and magical skyscapes. On Marine Drive, the hawkers have stealthily reclaimed their territory. It’s been years since corn on the cob and chaat, chana zor garam and cutting chai were companions to the gusty winds and cloudy skies here. Anyway, the hawkers are back and the wall sitters are feasting well. The walkers cast envious looks their way (most of us have only reluctantly transited from wall sitter to walker and the temptation to revert is strong). We try to ignore the siren call of drifting aromas, the sounds of munching and slurping and totter away, weak with longing.
The runners and joggers disdainfully flow past this endless struggle between weighing scale and heart disease on the one side and indulgence and a breezy insouciance on the other. They have achieved hard muscled, toned nirvana. They are no longer tempted by such mundane things as food. The road calls and the long distance runner, at the top of this shaky ladder of fitness, can’t help but bask in his superiority over the rest of us mortals. They try to hide it but I’ve seen that fleeting look and I know its name: Loser, it calls out to us poor tempted souls.
I digress. Obviously, this is a sore and tender topic (much like many parts of my body after a walk).
Anyway, due to the return of the hawkers and the moisture laden air and soil, a minor miracle is now incarnate on Marine Drive. Surrounding a few trees, in the patch of soil demarcated by bricks, a crop has been sown inadvertently and may even be ready to harvest soon. Lush leaves, as tall as my shoulder, and closer inspection shows the beginnings of the cobs at the V where two leaves grow away from each other. It’s a field of corn! Somehow, the discarded stem or husk or kernels have found a way to germinate in the bitter salt and diesel fumes of Marine Drive. It’s as if a small part of Punjab or Iowa has been resurrected in this dusty, dirty city of ours.
The imagination expands. The cobs grow, nestled within the husks, green at first, turning yellow as the sun. The silk is lustrous, the weight of the cob borne aloft by the sturdy grassy stems. The sparrows come to investigate and go crazy feeding on the fat, juicy kernels. This is my imagination, so crows and rats are banned from destroying these precious plants. The civic workers can be depended on to ignore any fresh work, so the crop is probably safe from them. People too, because city dwellers tend to be suspicious of any free largesse, especially the edible kind. Still, the crop is generous, and a kid might pluck one to gnaw on. It’s entirely possible that every sunny muddy spot on the promenade might soon have a little field of corn, as the birds and other pollinators go about their work.
In reality, it seems like a wonderful idea for propagation. Interspersed with the ornamental cannas in the central road dividers, local tulsi and mint could be sown. Or mosambi and lime trees alternating with the champas and gulmohars lining the highways. In the little patches of mud under any roadside tree, herbs of all description could scent the air and delight the bees instead of the ubiquitous and blandly beautiful coleus or ferns.
I have a little dream project. A tree was cut last year near the sugarcane juice wallah just down my road. It was rotten and had to go. But instead of replanting another sapling, the muddy square, precious real estate in our hungry city, was quickly cemented over around the old stump. I waited to see if the stump would revive this monsoon, as hardy Mumbai trees sometimes do. But there has been no sign of green life. Now I have a sturdy Mosambi sapling ready for the ground. I hope to get the permission required (yes, good deeds need far more paperwork and licenses than anything nefarious in these interesting times – we are inherently distrustful of good intentions…sad but true), have the cement removed and the mosambi sapling planted there. And around it, I’ll plant a wild profusion of herbs.
What’s the worst that will happen? The herbs will disappear one night. The rats will lead a marauding pack followed by needy humans. Well, then it’ll be time to plant some more. This will be a little patch of earth that will always give and share.
Utopic? But of course. Idealistic? Certainly. La-la land? Maybe. And all because a patch of corn has wildly and wonderfully sprung up at Marine Drive. I love how nature fights back, throws everything into the ring and goes on until the final bell.
That bell has begun to toll in different parts of the world, and its faint chimes are getting louder. It’s the little things: the regenerance of hacked trees, corn fields springing up in unlikely places, plants growing in pavement cracks, butterflies hovering over weeds choked by plastic, papaya trees literally growing out of a garbage heap, these little things bring hope that it’s not too late to stop the bell’s tolling.
Give the natural world a chance and it will give generously, bountifully, without recrimination or resentment. A little field of corn on Marine Drive is standing testament to this truth.