These flowers are from five rose bushes in our garden which have a long history. Although they bear only few flowers, each flower has a morphology and fragrance, distinct and different from the other rose bushes in the garden. These are native rose bushes which did not have a history of budding.
As I watch them, during the morning walk they have a story to tell me. They were planted as rose cuttings in our garden by my parents which they gathered from other gardens in our neighbourhood. I remember multiplying these varieties in our garden by planting cuttings during the winter season. They grow up and have a natural resilience against pests. The budded rose bushes are less resilient and insects thrive on the buds unless we spray insecticides to protect them and their leaves.
The rose flowers are more than just ornamental in purpose. They are flowers associated with occasions. It was the habit of my parents to give visitors a few rose flowers and sometimes some rose cuttings. I remember watching those occasions when the visitors felt surprised and touched. When I meet senior citizens in the village shopping area, I still hear someone coming forward to tell me that the rose cuttings from our garden gifted by my parents are still bearing flowers. They too have long years of history.
Now rose flowers are memorials of such occasions! The 'community living' practiced in our village at that time had the feature of sharing the produce of the vegetable garden between neighbours. It was common for my parents to give bunches of banana, beans and coconuts to our neighbours as we often had good yield of them. We received fruits such as pine apple, mango, and papaya from our neighbours.
Anna continues this practice of distributing beans, banana bunches, rambutan, Chikkoo and papaya to few of our neighbours.
They are symbols of yesteryears we like to carry on to celebrate long history of 'shared living' !
I recall sights in my childhood, of people carrying produce of the farm on Sundays, to the church to distribute them among the members of the congregation. It was a custom to bring the first produce of every season to share with others. The harvest festival in many congregations in the later years replaced this with an annual event.
The insularity that is the norm now has replaced the experience of shared living of yesteryears.
We have many gains of comfort and prosperity now in a technologically advanced environment. But trustful and communicative living as a neighbourhood community is less of reality now!
I remember late Rev A.C.Oommen, the head of chaplaincy at the ChrIstian Medical College, Vellore talking about a practice in the early sixties, when a family would gather the provision list from a few families in the neighbourhood, when they went out for shopping. He used to refer to it as a sign of the attitude of proximity that prevailed at that time towards neighbours.
I regret that even for us, neighbours are strangers as we live occupied with our own chores!
I wish that the neighbourhood would become a social home for many!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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