Aargh

Admitted, I haven’t been much of a gardening fan through the years. It’s my mum who ought to take the credit for being a thorough green-nut. But there was a reason for my aforementioned apathy: we lived in crowded Nungambakkam, surrounded by moss-covered cement floors and quarrelling people, which made it difficult to have even a couple of potted plants – the effort was simply too much.

Once we moved to Valasaravakkam, however, things would be slightly easier, or so we thought. There was a tiny strip of sandy space beside our house, which set my mother scrabbling for her gardening tools at once – and I wasrn oped in as well. I kept moping that this was damn hard work, cutting and heaping and clearing the ground – but what do you know? I actually began to develop a taste for it. Soon we were clearing the space like mad, and planting all sorts of things: jasmine, hyacinths, roses and button roses …

Until Her highness M arrived to the flat right behind us. The ground is common property, and she decided that she would excercise her rights at once. The whole day was spent tramping all ove rthe garden space, and dropping hints about the over-powering weeds, and getting someone to clear the space and cover it in cement. Provided we supplied her with money, of course (wasn’t this a common area?)

She’s keen to use our side of the garden, despite having space of her own, to dump building tiles, talk on her cell-phone, and get her child to trample the plants. But here’s the irony: she won’t even clear the weeds growing on her side of the gate, because it belongs to the flat above, and they would have to pay to clear it. For freaking God’s sake …!

Why would people want to destroy other people’s innocent pastimes? This female makes me want to tear her papart. Talk about tasteless, selfish, self-centred behaviour. Grrr!