An Essence of Roses

My late grandfather kept the most beautiful garden in the world. It resided in a slightly forgotten neighborhood in Jaipur, in the front lawn of a house that he built himself. It was high on my list of top reasons to visit my family in India - his garden was a marvel to my seven-year-old self. He had jasmine, tuberose, poppy, lantana shrubs, and the most wonderful array of roses. There were marigolds mingling at the roots of papaya trees. Believe it or not, he also had pine trees that had soft leaves and gave these grey-green berries every summer. These plants bordered a tiny lawn of very short, very light green grass. The grass was moss-like, springy. It was the very best kind, the very best you could expect in the desert state of Rajasthan. I have never walked on heather, but I always thought it would be the fuzz-like texture of my nanaji's lawn. I still have a ghost memory of that softness on my feet.

Nanaji's garden was his religion. He watered it everyday, and I would help him whenever I could. I followed him everywhere, and I would check the water tank periodically to let him know when he needed to stop watering. I yelled at my cousins for ruining any spot of turf. He once told me never to step on the ants which made their pilgrimages from the cracks in the driveway to his lawn - they had their part to play too. If they didn't eat the bits of greasy food which occasionally flew in with the ever-present dust, the garden would not thrive. Conversely, they are food for the beetles, who then eat the aphids that destroy his array of lantana bushes.
I loved seeing him love his garden. It made me love it too. I was surrounded by beauty and clear signs of nurture, caring, and devotion.

Knowing these things about him, I could only say that I never felt more important or needed in my entire childhood when he told me that someone had been stealing roses from his gardens. Our prime suspect was the neighbor's kid, whose house was adjoined to ours, so there wasn't a wall separating his family's home from ours. He had as much access to the garden as I did. I was charged, with all the solemnity of a soldier being sent to war, with counting the roses once in the morning and once at night. At all times, I was to watch for suspicious activity from the neighbor's boy.

I took this very seriously. Seriously enough that I decided that instead of waiting for the kid to attack my Eden, I would preemptively teach him a lesson. I hunted him down after the daily siesta which happened post-lunch. A few kicks to his shins and a sharp scolding from both his parents and my mom (and some satisfying tears from him), I was convinced he had been sufficiently scared off the roses.

But I still kept count that day, faithfully doing it four times that day, just in case. The count hadn't changed - until the fourth one.
There was one rose missing, and from the angle of the cut it had clearly been stolen, and not by the harsh desert wind.

The weight of shame was heavy in my feet as I walked on the cool red floor of the veranda to his seat that evening. I gave him the bitter news, and promptly apologized. I even hurriedly explained to him my theory that the neighbor's boy had tried to take revenge, and probably took the rose when I went inside for water.

I could get the rose back. And I would make him pay, I promise. Close to tears and indignant, I looked up at my nanaji.

I expected him to cry. For thunder to roll over his brow, for lightening to strike me from any one of the terrifying multi-armed Indian gods I saw literally everywhere. Even worse, I expected disappointment.

Instead, he looked at me with the most amusing smile. He reached behind his chair, and pulled out the rose, cleanly cut in his frail hands. And then he started laughing. His smile and mirth shook his frame, and his eyes - my mom's eyes, my eyes - sparkled brightly, even behind folds and folds of skin from his face.

I was angry. Frustrated. Sheepish, completely embarrassed. Tricked! Me! But of course, I couldn't help laughing with him. The hilarity of it couldn't escape me, and he had infectious laughter.

Wow. What a kick he must have gotten out of it all. There I was, so serious about everything, enough to get in a fight, defending his honor. Best trick ever, I must admit. Of all my memories I have of him, the clearest one I have is the distinct sound of my high-pitched laughter mixing with his raspy, aged one.

The rest of that summer there, I learned how to make rose candy from mixing rose petals with sugar and honey, and letting it bake and harden in a glass jar under the gaze of the sun. My first lesson used the rose I had fought so hard to keep that day. I also learned the proper way to pluck flowers and sew them up together to make garlands to put on the gods at temple.
I also spent time learning all the names, in Hindi, of the plants he raised. The most heartbreaking thing about him passing away some years ago was that I couldn't remember many of the names, and he wasn't going to come back to teach to me them again.

But while he doesn't come back to teach me any names, he does come back time to time to teach me both how to take things seriously - and how to laugh at myself.