After many years, I found Sukhu uncle in a charity-run old age home. Age had crept on to his face, leaving deep wrinkles. His black, shiny eyes were set deeper than before. His receding hair had turned grey. His body had become emaciated and looked almost cadaverous; it seemed he had been starving for months.
I wouldn't have ever gone there, but my friend on his birthday wanted to distribute gifts in an old age home. He wanted me to go with him; he insisted so much I had to.
There I found him after a long time. He was looking unblinkingly at flowers, sitting by himself on a bench, for what seemed hours to me.
He was like that from the beginning, in love with plants, trees and flowers. It seemed he had not changed much from the inside. It was just the outer look that had become frail; he had withered in the course of time. Seeing him, my thoughts went back to a time when he was young and handsome.
Our house was somewhere in a labyrinth of old crooked streets near Lalita Ghat, where ruminating cows contemplated and calm and meditative bulls roamed, and chased the cows amorously now and then. Red-faced macaques jumped from one building to another with their tails dangling in the air, always manoeuvring to steal or snatch food, grooming or scratching themselves in their free time. Sadhus with matted hair and face painted with ash wandered, and dogs slept curled up near heaps of filth that was mounting by the day. The streets remained muddy and slippery, drenched in overflowing sewage water, and the smell of cow dung lingered in the air. The neighbouring houses were dilapidated. Banyan tree shot up on any crevice or hole of old and decrepit walls, clutching and embracing till it crumbled down to earth.
In front of our house there was a small garden and Sukhu uncle was our gardener. He was obsessed with plants. It was our garden and Sukhu was just the gardener but he reigned there like a dictator. I think nobody could muster up the courage to come in his way in the matter of gardening decisions, not even the head of the family, my father. He was often ill-tempered, and always clad in a loin cloth. I don't know why my father never fired him. I didn't like his way of working and one day I went to my father angrily to complain about him. I needed a flower for my school project. I went into the garden and I was just sniffing the marigolds when he came and refused to let me pluck any. "Not from this garden. Why doesn't your teacher let you pluck few from his garden?" he said reproachfully. Blood rushed to my head, I was boiling, and I ran to my father.
“Papa, please get a new gardener, what does he think about himself, he can't even let me pluck one flower,” I said indignantly. My father was insouciant. “You wouldn't get a gardener like him,” he said, smiling.
“You know he's so obstinate, he doesn't even let me touch his plants. Come with me in the evening, I'll buy you a few from the market,” my father said. But I didn’t like it a bit.
Sukhu didn't like anyone intervening and chose his own spots to plant seedlings he brought from a nursery. He would flatter my father at the end of every month so he could get some money to buy plants for the garden. He would start nagging a week before the end of each month, telling my father how important it was to get new plants, manure and pots for the garden without procrastinating even for a single day. This is something he never forgot, although he was so forgetful he didn't even remember his own pay date. He would always be confused between marigold and dahlia. He would call marigold dahlia and dahlia marigold.
I never found him pestering my father for his own payment; all he cared about was plants and trees. My father had built a small room for him in the corner of the garden. He would do his perfunctory cooking there and from his window keep an eye on the flowers.
My mother would sulk each morning when she would go for her prayers. “Such a big garden and so many flowers, but not even one I can offer to gods," she would say, while muttering her prayers. She would grunt in reply to my father's queries.
He was in my house even before my birth. Nobody knew from where he had come. When I asked my father he said, “He was a nomad, I think. He came and asked if he could take care of my garden and I agreed.” Certainly he was a nomad as he never went away to visit his hometown or village. It seemed he had no relatives, no home, not much of belongings — except the garden he loved so much.
Everyone had a different take about his mysterious past. Some said he was a dacoit and was actually hiding here. Some said he ran away from his house only to become a monk. My mother believed his presence in our house was a result of someone's evil eye. She presumed that his ominous presence would have some pretty serious repercussions.
His enthusiasm for plants and trees was undaunting. He took utmost care of every single plant. During summer he would spend all day under the margosa (neem) tree, lying there on a rope-woven bed. He would assiduously water all the plants and trees daily in the evening. His energy was prodigious.
I could dimly recall that evening when my mother asked Sukhu uncle to bring some vegetables from the market two blocks down the road. I was waiting for him to leave so I could pluck few marigolds in his absence just to tease him. I saw him leaving; the old iron door creaked on its hinges when he shut it behind him.
I kept waiting for him. Hours passed, night fell upon the city, but he never returned.
The next day my father wanted to lodge a police complaint, but my mother suggested he wait. “He's not a child. He must have stayed over with some old friends,” she said.
Days turned into months but he didn’t return. We all missed Sukhu uncle. My mother never admitted it, but she also missed him and remained sullen for weeks. She regretted her uncharitable remarks about him.
In a few weeks, our garden had lost its charm, the plants had withered and the trees had wilted. It seemed our garden also missed its gardener.
Then I had found him in that old age home, still looking at plants unblinkingly. I went near him and called out his name, when a man patted my shoulder from behind. “Do you know him?” he asked.
“Yes, he is Sukhu uncle. He was our gardener for years,” I said.
“Can we have a word?” the man asked, and motioned me to a bench. I followed him. He pulled his long beard, lit a cigarette and offered me one, but I refused. Several minutes passed but he didn't say a word. It was as if a strange silence had descended on him.
“You wanted to talk about something,” I broke the silence finally.
“He has Alzheimer’s. He gets paranoid easily. Your talking might aggravate the problem. He has forgotten everything,” the man said with a nonchalant air.
My jaw dropped, light faded from my face, I was stunned as if someone had struck me hard in my face. I sat there bewildered.
The man's voice echoed in my ears, and my heart reasoned: had he really forgotten everything!
I turned my eyes towards Sukhu uncle again. His thin body had a deadly calm about it. He was still looking at flowers. He was drooping like a wilted plant. Old age had come upon him. However, I gathered his love for greenery and flowers had not died yet. He still looked smitten by flowers.
Perhaps, love is something a man never forgets, I thought.