before one, takes the stem in his hand, caresses the leaves, brushes gently over the flowers, looks at you, and says in a saintly tone: “This plant is unhappy.”The plant is unhappy because it is hot, and it is not happy with whatever water it has got, he explains. Sufi not only talks to the plants. He also listens. He says he understands them, he can sense their moods.
Now, if this makes you cynical, know that Sufi can sense your mood too. He turns to you and says: “Don’t worry. I am perfectly alright...” He will smile now, and that is disarming.Sufi’s association with plants goes back many years in time, when he used to manage his own nursery in his hometown in Pakistan. But since the last 44 years, he has been in the UAE, first, selling newspapers, writing in a few of them occasionally, and now, turning full-time garden-keeper at the Pakistan Association, Dubai. As if to prove his abiding loyalty with the dailies, he has a vernacular newspaper folded in his hands.He has also enrolled for an English speaking course at the Pakistan Association because he wants to go on a world tour, which might be possible after all, because his daughter works for an airline company. He had always wanted to visit the UK to hopefully lay a floral wreath at the tombstone of a leader he respects.
Sufi is a garden-keeper with a difference. At 75, he is sturdy, strong, and despite the flagging fortunes that has haunted his past, he has a positive outlook towards life. That goads him to attend English lessons and impress you with whatever he has learnt. He is confident now that the English he has learnt will help him trek foreign lands. “I can understand what they say,” he asserts.Sufi’s garden lines the Pakistani Association courtyard. It is not a visual spectacle that greets you here.
No, Sufi isn’t one to impress you with frills.In fact, you might even be tempted to regard the lay-out, the spread, as rather haphazard. That is because Sufi does not plant regular flowering plants. Yes, he has the usual collection of bougainvillea and other flowers but more significantly, he has been painstakingly nurturing a garden of herbs.“I have planted more than 4000 Tulsi (the "sacred basil," Ocimum sanctum), here,” he says. The entire courtyard is lined with Tulsi shrubs, the air above the plants bearing that distinctive tinge of herbal fragrance.Sufi now goes on to explain the many varieties of Tulsi, its medicinal properties and also claims that a Tulsi leaf extract has been reversing his greying. “I have old photographs showing all my hair and beard totally white,” he says. “For many months now, I have been using the Tulsi extract, which I make by boiling the leaves in water, and look, can’t you see the shades of black?”Oh yes, there are black shades to the abundance of white. But why doubt him anyway? He is not making a sales pitch. All he does is expound the medicinal properties of plants, and he does not restrict that to the Tulsi.
Sufi is a garden-keeper with a difference. At 75, he is sturdy, strong, and despite the flagging fortunes that has haunted his past, he has a positive outlook towards life. That goads him to attend English lessons and impress you with whatever he has learnt. He is confident now that the English he has learnt will help him trek foreign lands. “I can understand what they say,” he asserts.Sufi’s garden lines the Pakistani Association courtyard. It is not a visual spectacle that greets you here.
No, Sufi isn’t one to impress you with frills.In fact, you might even be tempted to regard the lay-out, the spread, as rather haphazard. That is because Sufi does not plant regular flowering plants. Yes, he has the usual collection of bougainvillea and other flowers but more significantly, he has been painstakingly nurturing a garden of herbs.“I have planted more than 4000 Tulsi (the "sacred basil," Ocimum sanctum), here,” he says. The entire courtyard is lined with Tulsi shrubs, the air above the plants bearing that distinctive tinge of herbal fragrance.Sufi now goes on to explain the many varieties of Tulsi, its medicinal properties and also claims that a Tulsi leaf extract has been reversing his greying. “I have old photographs showing all my hair and beard totally white,” he says. “For many months now, I have been using the Tulsi extract, which I make by boiling the leaves in water, and look, can’t you see the shades of black?”Oh yes, there are black shades to the abundance of white. But why doubt him anyway? He is not making a sales pitch. All he does is expound the medicinal properties of plants, and he does not restrict that to the Tulsi.
He draws your attention to the Phyllanthus niruri, a herbal cure recommended by Ayurveda, the ancient Indian medicine of life, as effective in the treatment of jaundice. And he takes to you the shoe-flower (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) shrubs; he has many varieties lined up, and he has been happily distributing its leaves to women who value the leaf-extract as an effective hair conditioner.Sufi's collection also includes a good number of jasmine plants and Crotalaria spp. Then there are the "Din Ka Raja, Raat Ki Rani..." — and many more plants that Sufi has been sourcing from wherever he goes. That has included the hills and valleys of Kashmir.
Draw him to the past, and Sufi recalls the days when he used to be a newspaper distributor, and blurts out the names of many English, Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam periodicals he used to carry around. "They would come two times a week by flight," he says. That meant delivering three to four days' newspapers together.
Every herb, every plant, he says, has a value. That is what you come to respect with time, with age...
He was also appointed by an Urdu newspaper to serve as their news stringer. "I was among the welcome crowd who greeted the first Pakistani delegation to the UAE," he adds, "as well as the first flight of PIA."
Despite such journalistic excitements, which he still cherishes, subsequently, he moved away from newspaper distribution and entered the profession that is his first love — the nursery business. There is a history of pain in between, which he doesn't want to reveal now. His eyes have welled up with tears, and even a distant memory of the past is painful for him.
The father of seven children — four girls and three boys — Sufi likes to look ahead and leave the past behind. That is the learning of 75 years. "I have no love for money," he says. "And I speak my mind. I never hesitate to say anything to one's face but I will never talk behind one's back."
Sufi is now in a pensive, even philosophical mood. But mention plants, and he eases into the present. "I want to take these herbs, and plant them in more public places. People must learn the value of these herbs," he says.The father of seven children — four girls and three boys — Sufi likes to look ahead and leave the past behind. That is the learning of 75 years. "I have no love for money," he says. "And I speak my mind. I never hesitate to say anything to one's face but I will never talk behind one's back."
Every herb, every plant, he says, has a value. That is what you come to respect with time, with age...
