A Story of Two Roses

 

It’s a little story of two roses in my small garden, one deep yellow and the other profoundly pink. Both of them are Mother Nature’s expression of love, joy and smiles. But there is a fundamental difference.

The yellow flower is a result of mankind’s grafting his own desires, likes, dislikes and parameters of beauty on the basic stem found in nature. As we all know grafted flowers look beautiful, are sturdy, nicely patterned but they lack the soul of a flower, fragrance. The human touch somehow quells the free spirit. They are lively plastic flowers at the most. Yes, it looks good from a distance. It has been there for a few weeks in the winter. But go near it, and you realise it doesn’t offer you much beyond the first dimension of appearance.

The nectar suckers hardly have anything for them here. It’s a strong and sturdy, finely patterned fat rose. It withstands weather elements with a haughty head-on temperament. Mortality, but, is the law, so now it starts withering, its sturdy leaves still stricken to the stem turn blackish. They now turn discoloured and crinkled. One can see the agents of death spreading their tentacles gradually through it. It’s a sad sight to see it getting old, debilitated, diseased and disfigured. It seems it wants to stay here forever, a kind of human-centric tendency to occupy the planet forever, a mad race to leave permanent marks on the shifting sands.  

The desi rose, the pink darling, basking under the winter sun without any human intervention through the grafting technique, is spared of our meddling with the free-wheeling smiles and fragrance of Mother Nature. Its petals are velvety soft and fragrant. Go near it and it welcomes you with its mollycoddling smile and soul-tingling smell.

Its soft petals respond to the kisses of wintery breeze that makes it smile even more beautifully. The bees and beetles have a whole perfumery and brewery at their disposal. It’s a thriving little world in itself. Being untouched by the human tendency to own, occupy and control, it sprouts fully and blossoms to its peak. The design is simple. It stays for a week at the most but lives its life to the full. The design is so simple that it opens perfectly and almost explodes with ecstasy to scatter its being into a larger existence. The petals don’t wither. They fly away while still at their best in fragrance and splendour.   

The yellow rose clings and stinks. It doesn't want to give. It dies a painful elongated death. It doesn't surrender to change and holds its youth's bloom in a fist, a constriction, a knot, a stagnation. It will be there till it turns ugly. The glory of its past will be overshadowed by the piteous whine of its present. A painful event stuck up in the loop of time.

The pink desi rose opens up fully. It gives all it has to open up and scatter its still fragrant petals as a homage to gentle winds, balmy afternoon winters and keenly awaiting mother earth. It showers beauty. It's a drizzle of joy. It's not death. This is ecstatic disintegration for the larger integration. A process! A fluidity beyond the constraints of space and time.

And here we can draw a few little lessons dear readers. We can blossom up fully with life if we adhere to the basic fundamentals of mother existence. Yes, the struggle and challenges of survival in the modern world require certain tools and techniques of modernity. However, these are mere conveniences. These shouldn’t rob us of the spirit and fragrance of being human. The grafting of techniques has a propensity to steal our identity to turn us almost machines. No technological grafting should be strong enough to change the basic human in us. Use the modern conveniences to the best of your knowledge, education and skills. But stay grounded. Be a desi rose that blooms fully with open-charmed beauty, inherent simplicity and loads of fragrance. And once you live fully, death loses its pinch and scare. One explodes with joy and painlessly moves over to the next dimension of existence.