~ A Garden Family...~

She is a working mother, though she does not work in a corporate office, her sole aim is to add some bits of moolah in the family coffers, though uneducated, she works like a true professional, tending to plants and brooming and cleaning the leaves which fall off the winds – she is our park attendant ‘Rukhmani Devi’.

People know her for quite some time now as the entire family lives in a small makeshift home being provided by the district administration – the whole day is consumed to take care of trees and brooming large swathes of park, she is always consumed in her work though she finds time for her little one to caress him in between. 

A motherly love always bestows upon her when she sees her little son (she lovingly calls him ‘Mani’) running out of patience and starts to cry profusely – she tries to cuddle him and gives him ‘toys’ which consists of tree barks and big leaves which have fallen off trees and shrubs – the child surely has a differential childhood, though for many such mothers who are in the grip of abject poverty, raising kids like ‘Mani’ is an everyday struggle.

The family breakfast, lunch and dinner is synonymous with a lentil or a vegetable along with bread ( roti as we call it in India) – keeping it simple or should I say, that is what they can afford out of their dire circumstances – milk sometimes is affordable for the kid, especially when it is one of those days when the ‘contractor’ pays the couple for their work.

Both parents of Mani are daily wagers and live out of contractual jobs – living in most tiring circumstances and a meagre income, which is wavering – life for them is surely a tough – though unusual help comes from people who stroll the park and have got to know about the family and its antecedents.

Rukhmani’s husband Kishorilal is a thin build man and is the main Gardner of the park, he has been caressing the plants and implanting them for almost a decade as we know him. Hailing from western UP, he came here with his uncle as he tells me and liked ‘Delhi’s’ population and culture – since then he has found this to be his profession. Nowadays it is spring – the season of flowers, both Kishorilal and his wife Rukhmani is busy with flowers – it is due to their effort that the park has become cynosure of all eyes.

Today, I spotted Mani roaming with his mother as he has become naughty enough whilst he plays with street dogs roaming in the park – they have synonymously become good friends and I observe that the canines (some of them puppies) have befriended their new toddler friend, though the mother is suspicious of her son’s new companions but she has little options as she could not find any worthwhile time pass for Mani – either he plays with mud, making nested homes or else is playing with garden puppies.

Passersby put a tap on Mani’s head as a gesture of blessing, and surely some of the oldy uncles walking on the aisle do a general chit-chat with Rukhmani, asking about Mani – they have truthful intentions of helping him and want him to be an educated man rather than a daily wage Gardner as his father, though there is quite some time for him to graduate his life to a regular school.

As the wind blow at its speediest, Mani is happy strolling with his mother, overlooking his father working in the garden – his slipper-less feet stands testimony to a life of poverty the family lives in, though he calmly forgets the pain or injury he is prone to whilst he walks barefoot in the park – all for his motherly love what he gets every day, his of course is a happy go lucky family whose consistent hard work for a meagre income has surely given a rich dividend in the form of a flower-ridden heaven where we all go everyday to get rid of our daily razzmatazz of life and its living…