Sharodiya Anjali 2005 - Pujari

__________________________________________________________________Durga Puja 2005
(Part II)
Aradhana Bhattacharya
The Green Thumb
Our new house – at last….
Getting over the initial whirlpool of activities very easily associated with moving, we finally let out a
‘poohhhh’ of relief, waving at the army of friends who had graciously joined-in to help us shift. Standing
barefoot on the sizzling concrete of our new-found driveway, we watched the countless bunch of cars
parked on both sides of the street and of course the monstrous truck, zoom pass our house to disappear
around the bend of the curb.
At least the move was over. It took
us a few days to reorganize the
furniture from apartment mode to
the house mode! Though a lot of
known faces who had recently
bought a home complained that
their place looked more like a
football (soccer) field with a few
pieces of objects scattered here &
there, we were untouched by such
a dilemma. Our furniture was a
perfect fit for our mid-sized house.
The next few days flew by in
getting used to the place.
Sitting on the patio swing, sipping
into a hot cup of tea; the following
Saturday morning, we lazily ran
our eyes around the lawn
(backyard as we call it here).It had
rained the previous night. A few
drops of dew caught in the silvery
cobweb, spread over a length of
grass, glimmered like diamonds of
nature touched by the first rays of
the morning sun. A curious busybee
buzzed around restlessly and
the solitary chipmunk played
around in circles trying to paw at
the vibrant butterflies that fluttered
by. Unlike us the animal world
had geared into action. Wrapped in
a shawl of greenery, our eyes
relaxed resting on its soothing tones.
The broad darker stripes of the Hosta
dotting the edges posed a sharp
contrast to the sage green of its more
ornamental counterparts. The deep
shiny green foliage of the Winter
Daphne brought out the beauty of the
Aucuba with it’s leafs splashed in gold.
Engulfed in a variety of emeralds, jade,
olives and lime, these myriad shades of
green, worked their way to compliment
each other. The velvety soft grass
spread over an entire length of the
backyard, matched the looks of a soft
luxuriant carpet, fresh and inviting. As
there were no hard edges, our vision
easily spilt over to the other side of our
yard. Though Jackie’s (our
neighbor) yard was very similar
to ours in dimension, it
thoroughly lacked a significant
counterpart that was in
abundance on our side of the
property. Namely weeds!!!!
“Give weeds an inch and they
will take your yard” had become
the present reality.
Very soon our mental calculator
sprung into action.
‘The grass was indeed greener
on the other side of the
(imaginary) fence!’
Weeds…but surely that could
be remedied As we had no
other major plans for the day,
operation ‘Termination weeds’
was under way….
With no garden tools in stock
we had to solely rely on a light
weight plastic bucket for
collection and our bare hands to
pull them out.
Of course not to forget the
quintessential gloves, we had
seen enough poison ivy ads on
TV to forget that! Though our
supplies were limited our
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Sharodiya Anjali 2005 57 n¡lc£u¡ A”m£ 1412