Chat, Chill and Learn

 By Vijaya Rao

It was a Saturday morning and while the sun was up, we at Bodhi were fully charged to meet all our friends and exchange notes. We did not have to check our Wi-Fi or call the more tech savvy ones at home for help to scrunch our faces into the screen to get a partial view of people and plants. After entering into the open armed club house of Defense Colony Institute fully masked, shaking our sterile hands we gently slipped into hugs, pulled our masks down and dug our hands into mud. Corona was not permitted to enter where Nature lovers ruled the roost.

Getting down to business it was demo time and notes were jotted down either on paper or into our memories to be put to good use. The first was by Dr.Yogesh and Suseela on designing a raw material into bonsai. The basics were brushed up by the seniors while the new commers intently observed the steps to be followed. We saw a wild grown Fukien tree transform into an upcoming bonsai of beautiful trunk curvature with all the unnecessary branches knocked off. The cuttings won’t survive so some young shoots that had roots were quickly picked up by us.

The next demo was by Sheela who brought a few tall Ashoka saplings which were picked from the wayside and made to catch root in a pot. These were placed in forest style with the thick trunked ones in front and the others behind in a slightly asymmetrical manner on uneven ground to create depth. What was missing is Sita pining for Rama under one of the trees - a scene from the epic Ramayana?

Tanuki by Ramkumar and Vijaya was quite a challenge as the master here on this subject was sitting pretty before us. Help! Help! and Suseela appeared with a treated casuarina root and a leggy ficus that was fixed into it to create a beautiful Tanuki. Vijaya did the talking while Ram and Suseela brought the Dead wood to life - Phoenix Graft is what the westerners aptly named it. This was auctioned in American style in a very interesting way by Ram for Rs.2850/- The proceeds went to the club while our new member Lalitha was the lucky winner. Ram had a Tanuki made by him in a different style where he had fixed 4 to 5 Premnas into holes and hollows in the wood which was displayed along with the exhibits of our members.

We were unstoppable with eyeing what to sell or buy from our own supplies when Raja entered with a truck load of flowering Adeniums. Crazy pick and choose happened while our hearts took over our brains and while we kept mouthing ‘enough’ our hands grabbed a few.

 Did we get hungry? Of course, we did! After having polished Sangeetha’s supposedly mini meals in a mega box we chatted some time away planning our next meet until the arrival of Chocolate cake and thattai followed by tea. We huffed and puffed and carried our loot and exhibits into our respective transports and left gleaming away to glory.

Cheers to our defense colony friends Molly, Sheela, Alice and Nirmala for their passionate and warm hospitality.