The Gardener

PC: Kotresh H R

     "Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life."  - Parker Palmer

    He must be over seventy, though I did not ask him how old he was. He played a dual role. He was the gardener and the guard of the garden. He has been so for over two decades now. He dons these roles on behalf of the appointed government employees who pay him a part of their salary and visit once a while to cater to the paper work. This ad-hoc adjustment, an innovation at the lower rungs of Indian bureaucratic machinery, has existed in varying fashions. He recounts how he has been in and out of this work depending on the preference of those who are actually appointed to these posts. His pay is at their discretion, though in the recent years he thinks he is usually paid enough to sustain himself. 

     As we sit in the shade of the trees, he has watered and nourished these trees for over a score of years now, I ask him what he feels of the career he has built for himself. I get back an empty stare. He doesn't know what a career is. How foolish of me to ask so! To him, it is life. Not career. I curse my stupid obsession with careers. I am again reminded of what Cheryl Strayed wrote - "Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life."

       While I was framing questions in my mind, he sat silent. It seemed as though in silence he had found solace. He only replied, did not speak much. I didn't know what to ask of his job, though it had very much captured my interest. I was not sure if I could actually ask him of his job satisfaction. I finally asked him if he never looked for any other job during these years or was it like he loved gardening? Again a stare! But this time, he did open up. He explained - "I did look for jobs in the early years but this turned out to be easy and also paid me to a decent extent. After doing it for so many years, it has become part of my routine. Nothing like loving gardening but neither do I have problems with it." Silence again. 

       I felt the conversation was going nowhere. I was about to take his leave. But he began to speak again, this time by his own initiative - "You know, most of them who talk to me talk of the garden, the plants, the flowers, the rains and so on. Few talk of me and my job. Those who do, roughly fall into two categories. One, those who say I am lucky to be in this beautiful garden, such a beautiful job. Others pity my condition. They feel I am caged and chained in this lonely place for all my life. These all do raise questions in me. If I was timid not to explore the world or if I was lucky to tend to the garden? If I was lazy to find better prospects of earning? What if I would be thrown out when the next transfer takes place and the new employee may choose not to be my employer?"

"So the questions still haunt you?"

"Not actually. Now I am at peace."

"Oh, so you did find answers to those questions!"

"No, I have realized not all questions need to be answered."