My dad woke me up today early morning, as promised. I had a meteorology assignment to prepare. After half an hour of copy–paste business (that’s all what assignment is all about; more of information gathering rather than knowledge assimilation), the power went off. My UPS wasn’t working and zap went off my computer. I was a little disappointed as I’ve not saved my 18-page work. Actually, to call it my work would be a lie. It was the work of millions of people who contributed to Wikipedia, thousands of scientists at NOAA and IMD. So I was staring at the computer, hoping that the last saved version of the document would contain most of the editing already done.
Suddenly my dad asked me to accompany him to the backyard, where I’ve not frequented much. As I’d nothing to do, I considered it as a good idea in the morning mist. He has grown a lot of plants over the last few months. Pumpkins, bananas, snake gourd, bitter gourd, onions, pineapple, mango, coconut, jackfruit, and many other local spices. After the morning drizzle, the ambiance was indeed heavenly. A bunch of pumpkins was already hanging from the tender plant supported by a few sticks that my father had erected there. Their tendril grasped those sticks beautifully and was growing with its full might to give its fruits soon. A few orange colored insects were flying around the plant. My dad began to catch and kill them individually. I also followed suit. “This treatment is enough for a small garden like this, my dad remarked. Then suddenly, he cleared the question in my mind by saying “When this gets bigger, we can try spraying ground neem leaves mixed with water” “Never ever go for chemical pesticides in your life. They’ll spoil us”. Saying so, he tied some soft clothes around the young pumpkins to protect it from insects and weather.
After that, he showed me sprouting onion plants and young unripe jackfruits. Then he went on to the bananas. He named the varieties of the bananas, Sevvazhai, poovan, nenthran, palayamkodan (most of them are Malayalam names) just by seeing the leaf pattern. Pointing to a particular plantain, he remarked, “He is Kathali, you can't get him in the market. He will not grow long and won’t yield more than 60 bananas. But, he has a lot of medicinal properties. And I don't know whether you remember, but it was you who planted it a few months ago". I never realized that I was part of such a wonderful creation.
It was time to get ready for college. I had a really nice time having a stroll in our organic farm. Just then, the power came. I realized that the world appears much more beautiful when there is no electricity, isn’t it?
