My wife sowed a bitter gourd seed in a pot. It was from the gourd bought for vegetables and got ripen. It did germinate and we became happy. Any life brings happiness. It is nothing but natural. But this morning, after staying alive for a few days, it completely dried up

Not a big incident. Still it brought a whiff of remorse in us. I was always fond of cultivation. Kitchen garden accompanied me everywhere. It is only at Noida we embraced failure. My kitchen garden was famous. The vegetables grown in my backyard fed many of my neighbors. It gives delight to all

I can trace a long history behind it. The ads from the Globe Nursery of Kolkata caught my attention when I was in the schools. I was indulgent. Losing father at an early age my elder brother was compelled to seek job – any job, to support us. I used to look up to him for anything I needed. I simply wrote to him to send a book on cultivation of vegetables.

Along with one of my friends we began cultivating vegetables literally following every instruction of the book. It was a big success. I found the joy of watching a small little leaf coming out of a tiny seed. Growing gives more joy than eating.

The habit did not leave me wherever I went. Lastly at Hamirpur I had splendid record of growing vegetables. My wife was interested in keeping flowers. The flower beds on the front lawn of my residence were exquisite. It looked like a well kept park. In the backyard I had once 65 kilos of onions only.

It is entirely a different story at Noida. Of course, here we don’t have any open space. We had to resort to pots. Elsewhere we had good success with pots also. We proved to be total failure here despite all the care we took. Nothing grew as we wanted. A sense of superstition creeps in the psyche sometimes in lazy moments. Was it jinxed? But to no avail. We couldn’t correct it anyway.

Today’s drying up of the sapling is just another addition to that litany of woe. I read about “butterfly effect” recently. Can this insignificant incident have any effect on the universe? As per the author of the “butterfly effect” it may have. Everything in the universe is interconnected; one depends on another in many subtle and imperceptible ways not amenable to coarse human perception or his gross handiwork of so-called high precision gadgets. All are caught in a dynamic flow of fleeting moments recognized – if we can -- in relation with one another. Does it echo the Buddhist concept of “Dependent Origination”? Meeting point of science and religion?

In this tiny moment I cannot figure it out. For a small man it is not possible either. The entire system as a whole is in a state of flux -- moving constantly. Whatever we perceive is nothing but fickle glimpses of changing motion.

Feeling sad or exultant seemingly is of little significance. It signifies whatever notion your consciousness is ready to assign to it at this moment, which is gone by the very moment you want to grasp it leaving a pervasive trail of impermanence behind.