After a very long time, we seem to be in the midst of Acche din again. By 'we' of course I mean the infamous Lutyens gang, which visits Khan market and its salubrious public spaces, from different parts of the National Capital Region. Acche din have come this year, despite the highest court in the land pushing for green crackers and sanctioning their use for specific hours over two days. Of course, ours is not to reason that crackers can never be green but to bemoan the fact that no curbs or restraints can ever be put in place in the Delhi NCR, the original urban naxal city, where orders will be blatantly overlooked or flouted.
Some of us, academics, who got jobs when acche din were prominent at Delhi University in the previous century, lived through hardworked Septembers, even when teaching was in annual mode, because lecture rooms were filled with students, who were curious and eager to learn and explore everything that the university stood for. They came from different parts of the country, spoke various languages, found points of commonality among classmates after starting out as strangers, and began to engage with the processes of studying at the university.
Along with personal time and training provided through lectures/tutorials/practicals, teachers guided students to text books and reference books, mentoring them in the the art of self-study, thinking, reflection, dialogue, debate and writing so important for the growth and development of the mind. By end September, these interactions were usually peaking, since term began in mid-July and well over two months plus of serious teaching/ learning had been put in place. Student admissions were usually completed by the first of July, making it easy for them to get to colleges and settle in over the long fortnight.
At the end of September, the University shut down for a fortnight, and students went home for a break, as did the teachers. Sometimes, it corresponded with Navratri and Durga pooja, and sometimes it didn't, because the university followed the Gregorian calendar while our festivals followed the lunisolar version, but dissenting and freethinking, we all basked in the belief that celebrating Gandhiji's and Shastriji's birthdays during the break was a great reminder that the university system promoted commitment, honesty and integrity by allowing us to imbue the values represented by these iconic leaders.
October 2 is now co-opted as Cleanliness Day and continues to diminish both Gandhiji and Shastriji because the litter on our street, the systemic relocating of rubble and garbage, the polluted air and water and the routine chopping down of trees continues unabated, while tokensim is the order of the day. However, after a thirteen year vanvas, this year we have been given a nine-day break, so from the 18th of October to the 26th of October, it is vacation time for teachers and students at Delhi University.
An old friend and I met up, where else but in Lutyens Delhi, and strolled through Lodhi gardens, one of Delhi's beautiful green spaces which will hopefully be left alone in the years to come.
Lodhi gardens is verdant and has lots of quiet little green alcoves, such as the old Glasshouse and the herb garden which offset its imposing cenotaphs, and we wandered around marvelling at the shape of the Bael and the Philkan tree, while the flowers of the Silk Floss, forming a floral pink pattern on the grass, invited us to pause awhile.
Walking on well laid paths, unfortunately not as well swept, we walked past people seated on benches or in solitary communion, charmed by the florescent pink bougainvillea, and flanked by the ornamental palms that lorded over us. We went past the herbal garden and spotted the Mimosa pudica that we had studied about first in our middle school text book. A flowering perennial, this small shrub/plant has leaves that when touched, droop and fold up, causing it to shrink. Our Science teacher showed us the plant in an open patch in the school grounds.
In Mimosa pudica, the Latin name, 'Mimosa', comes from mimos or actor, ('a' shifts the gender) and 'Pudica' means bashful or shrinking. This plant although not native to India, has been valued for its medicinal properties in practices other than allopathy. Although it was formally identified by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753, its use as medicine all over the world reveals that it has been around for a very long time, and may have reached us by way of ancient trade routes. It is pantropical and is found all over India, as evinced by the various names for it in all our languages.
It is referred to as Lajjalu in Sanskrit, (one with modesty, shame, humility) and Chui mui in Hindi (sensitive, easily hurt) Lajwanti in Punjabi and many other Indian languages and Lojjawoti in Bengali; It is fascinating that across cultures where this plant was located, different groups of humans made more or less the same connections with the plant, giving it names in different tongues that shared the same meaning, thereby reiterating a shared commonality between human beings that stretches beyond regional and national borders.
Mimosa pudica in all these languages I have mentioned so far, is identified as feminine and the traits of lajja or pudica become a pattern of behaviour associated with the female gender. Lajjawati is a woman endowed with shyness or laaj, who can be easily discomfited or embarassed. In Tamil, it is known as totta-shurungi which translates into English as that which would shrink upon touch.
The characteristics of the plant became qualities equatable with humans and the rhetorical question on the tongues of aunts and grandmothers: Nee ennai tottashurungi aa?( Are you a totta-shurungi) was addressed to young cousins, who at the end of a scrap nursed injured feelings and lived in cold war conditions during summer vacations shared by the extended families. Trained to believe that the human species was more evolved, every young person, snapped out of feelings of low-self worth or rage. Escalating conditions were diffused and normalcy returned. No one wanted to be classified as a tottashrungi personality, suggesting an easily hurt/offended temperament.
Arguably, in the Tamil language, the totta-shurungi transcends the gender that was ascribed to it by the namers in most languages, reiterating yet again that an understanding of gender cannot always be rooted in biology, but must grow out of cultural practices. The totta-shurungi punctured sets of binaries and taught us to work our way out of being tongue-tied, embrace fluidity and adapt.
In its own way, this 'modest' shrub has been a gamechanger. It has defied expcctation, since this shrinking plant is a hardy perennial with charming flowers, despite its delicate fern-like bipinnate leaves on long stalks. The Mimosa pudica is regarded as a high-value medical plant for various disorders such as cancer, diabetes, skin ailments. UTIs, and obesity, that it helps to alleviate, while reminding us that the human species are connected to other living forms and occupy a symbiotic universe. It must be embraced as a significant symbol for the plural, multilingual and multi-hued world that seems to be receding with each passing day.
