BOTANY 2.0 3/25

A few days back here in Facebook, one of those brick-head conversation was on .. One of those typical out-of-the-blue irrelevant ones that I start off here, compelling my indulgent friends to add comments however bizarre the topic and my starting observations might be.

Anyway, in some convoluted way, at one stage I revealed this statement about none too glorious episodes when I was in school in the 11th. Standard : "In one of the class tests in class 11, I had got 3 (THREE) out of 25 [ 3/25 ] in Botany." Seriously! I did get 3 out of 25..

I'd been thinking about 'Botany' since then, someting like Botany 2.0 . And I came to this conclusion :
I think my Maternal Grandmother, my beloved cute DIDA, was a good 'botanist' of her times... The seeming eccentricity in the statement (as always, nothing new huh!) requires a bit of "detailing" (even by my standards.. Ahem..).

In the early and mid 70s, middle-class life in f Calcutta were in an oscillating mode : Most of the times dull, insensitive and Unfair. And at times, brightly understanding, benevolent and Giving with a Big Heart.

Whenever it oscillated across two smiling points, tender and favourable, Life would gift to me Prized Occasions, weekend nights that would ensure that I would sleep at night beside her. The location would remain the same -- It was a dreamy, beautiful, awfully constructed 2-storey eye-sore of a dwelling, my Palace of Wonders.

It had moist, algae infested walls with a nauseating dampness, the smell of which still remains the most common theme of my aromatic deja vus.

The steps were painfully high for me which I climbed one step at a time. Every step exhibited, with a bit of Adult Stocism, nasty cracks (which told the adults : Time's up). It was an excited spirit of adventure that added to my royal self-pride every time I climbed them with its nasty cracks -- the beautiful rocky heights capped by a Gothic tower where a princess slept....I called it MAMABARI.
I still do.

Sleeping the nights there with DIDA meant, for me, that I could repeatedly press her, without adult interference (that seemed obsessed with Discipline) for her detailed personalised narration of ghost stories of rural Bengal. She would continue to narrate with that beautiful, quivering pitch of hers till she saw me off as I would board my (MY) Dreamland Express, which stopped at Station Dawn.

All her accounts included Trees. And She knew Special Trees like the back of her hands (which, by the way, belonged to a Culinary Genius). Special Trees hosted unpleasantly Special guests. Ghosts.
She knew exactly which tree hosted which 'ghost'. And there was a time when I had a rather formidable knowledge of some deep enlightened truth of Botany.

So no wonder Botany 2. 3/25 reflects my pristine innocence, not any ignorance. I am not ignorant. I can't help if my 'Brain' ignores me persistently..(And no! I'm not going to take any "First Steps" to warm up to that narcissistic self-obsessed jelloid.) Reminds me of a chair umpire -- At the beginning of war, he sits up there and declares just once : "LOVE ALL". Later, throughout the war when points, games and sets are conquered, quipping in with "Quiet please", nodding to "Fault"s and inferring : "DEUCE" between unequal warriors...

During that test, I explored an eight year old half-grown brain, trapped inside a botanically challenged 16 year old budding man, who, by the way, was taking extreme care that the answer sheet retained its pristine white (oh c'on you paranoid comedians! I did respect Botany!)

Botany, thus for me, means the knowledge of an uncorroborated fact that Special Trees hosts Ghosts.

प
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------