Gandhiji and plants


Bapu was fond of plants from his younger days. There was no garden in his home, so he collected several plants and planted them in all kinds of containers and placed them on the rooftop. when his family moved to Rajkot, the new house had a little patch of garden for him work on. He would go to the garden every evening…after the school, work there for a few hours, tending to his plants. He would get up at the crack of dawn, walk with other children to a tank outside his village and while returning look for young plants for his garden he learnt a lot about plants and garden he told his friends about the plants. This love for trees and nature lasted all his life. One night, before retiring to his bed, Gandhiji wanted to keep his spinning wheel and materials ready. so his associate, miraben asked a volunteer to fetch some babul leaves to fix the bow. The volunteer went to the nearby garden and plucked a big branch of leaves. Miraben saw that the branch had young leaves which had folded. She went to Gandhiji said and said look how the young leaves have folded themselves for the night. Gandhiji was upset and angry looking at the broken branch. He said what was the need to break such a big branch, a few leaves would have been sufficient. ``Don’t you know that leaves should not be plucked in the night…trees are live beings , they live, breath, drink like us and like us the leaves go to sleep after the sunset.`` He reminded her; `` Don’t you remember what I said in my speech yesterday…do not pluck flowers for making garlands for me…it pains me…instead of flowers, garland me with cotton yarn… ``Why did you ask him to go and fetch leaves…it has only caused pain and misery to the tree when it had already folded its tender leaves for the night.`` Miraben sought forgiveness and admitted that she should not have done so.

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