CUP AND THE LIP

CUP AND THE LIP

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

22/V/2024

My chest swells with pride as I write this note. ‘Tree saplings’ grown from seeds by us have now grown into majestic trees. It has been a continuous effort since the last three years plus. We saw both success & failures.

Let me share with you the success story & some glitches. As they say, “there is many a slip between the cup and the lip”. Nevertheless, here goes….

We are lucky to be staying in a colony which is well maintained and green. With numerous varieties of trees, shrubs and green spaces which are looked after tirelessly by our horticulture staff. They deserve a big salute.

We have numerous WhatsApp ‘Tigers and Tigresses’, who “pelo bhashans” about planting a tree, keep the colony green, save water, ban plastic, protect the environment etc. Only very few turn ‘preaching to practice’. We took the cudgels to do our bit.

Our first trial was with mangoes. ‘Guthalis’, after we had ‘choosoed’ them were sown with success. After two years, the plants perished. Desert is not the correct place to grow mangoes, many of them lectured. We agreed to disagree. Our effort to grow this plant continues.

The reason why they died was very funny. There is a creeper growing on the bed which engulfed the ‘foot high’ mango sprouts. The ‘hedge cutting’ team were not aware that there was a plant there. ‘Chop-Chop’ and thank you happened.

‘Neem’ , which is the state tree of Rajasthan, was our second experiment. There was this huge neem tree nearby. ‘Nimbolis’ started sprouting during the rainy season. With nursery bags readily available, seedlings were transferred to bags. Once the plants matured, they were shifted to the ground.

Many Neem saplings were planted in common spaces infront of our house. The lady who looks after that garden was informed to take special care which she did. We stuck sticks around them for protection.

Though planted in the rainy season, out of four, only two survived, a positive sign. Neem is easiest to grow, needs little water and care but dangers lurking are numerous.

We have a brigade of young footballers, who every evening play in the lawn right above these plants. Once the game starts, they forget everything. Who cares if the ball hits a plant! A leap to pick up the ball which rolled over, slaughtered a few healthy plants. Boys or the ball land on them and the poor plants snap and die. What do you tell these budding soccer enthusiasts?

To indicate and highlight the location of new plants, we stuck a few bamboos this time. One fine Sunday, ‘boys’ got together to play in the lawn again. A brainwave struck them and they became sword bearing roman soldiers. Two armies came face to face.

Out came the bamboo sticks, which now became imaginary swords. One swipe on the neem sapling to test its efficacy, chopped off the plant's head. Our war was over before one could show the white flag of truce. This neem tree however survived and yours truly is standing next to it.

Then we did a Drumstick plant distribution campaign. From seed pods, we grew thirty plants and distributed them in our colony. Response was overwhelming. However, there was a hilarious revelation on the colony WhatsApp group, when someone complained that someone had uprooted the plant given by us, thinking it was a wild one, to plant another sapling they had purchased. Kar lo baat.

We kept about five Moringa plants, out of which two have survived. One of them is doing very well and has grown to about ten foot plus. Hopefully, this season it will flower and fruit.

We also have successfully grown plants from fallen almonds, seeds of litchee, peach, papayas and apricots. Papayas are flourishing while the rest are struggling but the effort is on.

The ‘ifs and buts’ are many to keep these plants alive. Dogs come and water them during their rounds. Once the scent is sprinkled, to cover it, another dog sprays over it. The plant dies due to an overdose of Ammonia.

At other times, horticulture people are in a hurry to drag the hose pipe. A loop in the hose gets entangled on a sapling which gets ‘guillotine’. Two mango plants got executed that way.

We have also planted a few saplings of Amaltas, Jamun, Goolar, Ficus, Banyan, Peepal and counting. A stick can be seen along the plants. Aim is to fill all gaps by planting as many trees and encourage people to get involved.

The extreme heat, lack of water, insensitivity of people, lack of awareness, exuberance, lack of knowledge of plants location, neglect, natural & man-made causes and termite infestation also become the nemesis for the plantation effort.

How can we reduce the gap between the ‘cup and the lip’? I wonder!!!!!!!

JAI HIND