Sunday, February 8, 2015

Guru Nikon, Buch Bucha aka Chickweed and Wordsworth

i know it might sound weird but because it is true i must say it.
A thing, an object has just become my friend philosopher and guide. Patient, and kind. One who ignores my mistakes as if they never happened and yet helps me advance one step ahead each time i am in session with this new mentor of mine. Whispering wisdom, opening up frontiers, without interruption wanting to hear my sorrows if targets were not successfully accomplished instead gently urging me to breathe in deep and give it another try and the best of all show me vistas and those parts of universe i never would have known existed.
i shall divulge with pleasure the name.
None but My NIKON DSLR 5100.
Of course such a relationship is possible. And why did i call it weird in the first place for i know men no people would be more appropriate who call their automobiles 'Baby' and even have names for them.

This particular blog is about one such aspect...that part of the universe which does not exist for most of us mainly because of our own stubborness of always looking up and not below. Also because we have for sake of our own vested interests decided to give them names and thus made them unworthy of our attention and love. So my Guru showed me that which we called Buch Bucha in Hindi and Chickweed/ Stitchwort and many other names in English which i shall divulge later in the blog as i proceed.
So then if my Guru could morph and take human form someone as William Wordsworth the poet who loved nature well enough to put it at a very high pedestal then Guru might've said after knowing of Buch Bucha's beauty and it's medicinal worth, '' Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar." Quite a deep thought and i'm sure Wordsworth meant a lot more than just crawling on your fours but to see Buch Bucha and the glory of it beauty one has to stoop rather sometime even be on all fours for the flowers are very tiny and generally the plant spreads like a carpet on the floor of the earth sticking very close to the grass and hardly discernible at times . Some flowers are about a quarter inch in diameter and others even less.
That's what my Guru showed me. That the carpet had beautiful tiny white flowers with five deeply notched petals that look like ten and also five green sepals. The sepals sometimes appear larger than petals. Actually they are larger. The flowers close by evening and open by mid morning fully. They also close when it's about to rain.
i wouldn't have known all this about the tiny beauty had i not been in session with my Guru doing Sweet Williams, Calendulas, Petunias. Gerberas, Begonias...all that were flamboyantly there as the lovely spring seasonal s.

As if holding a child by the finger my Guru was reiterating Wordsworth and saying, " Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher."
And thus i learnt that this large mat of lovely lush foliage that i had been ignoring all this while as it multiplied while many others shivered, withered and finally melted away during the chill of Delhi winters is scientifically known as Stellaria media. The common name of this plant which actually is a native of Europe is Chickweed because it is often eaten by chickens. Not only is the plant medicinal and used in Homeopathy to make drugs for diseases like Rheumatism and Psoriasis but that the plant is also edible and is used as a leaf vegetable often raw in salads. Wisdom poured in as i read pages and pages of Stellaria media starting with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellaria_media
Other common names are Mouse-Ear, Satinflower, Starweed, Starwort, Winterweed, Chickenwort and Stitchwort.
My eyes are glued...i am hardly breathing and i want Guru to really appreciate this...i hear Wordsworth , " With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony and the deep power of joy we see into the life of things,''
Guru acknowledges that solitude and this friendship has worked wonders for me when he smiles at my efforts through the screen and once again seems to chant the same of this of my favorite poet, " When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of it's business of it's pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.''
It is hard to anticipate then how without my friend, philosopher and guide my gadget my guru i could have seen a rare beauty or even experienced the joy of hearing my favorite poet from not any lawn or garden or any open vast stretch of land but this...a pot which had my grafted Chinese Oranges. See the mat of foliage there...
...That's where my Guru Gadget took me to...
i thus share my wisdom that i got from stooping down low and getting on my fours ...
Buch Bucha or what the chickens eat is not the only one there is more that only my Guru could show me and i shall be more than delighted to share my wisdom soon...one by one...
Till my next one then...sure do look up and also above but also now remember to look down and below. Cheers !!! 

1 comment:

  1. You are one of a kind who loves every bit of nature.Buchbucha could not escape from your searching eyes.It was amazing to know about something so insignificant yet so valuable.you have rightly remembered Wordsworth here.Beautiful shots indeed! And those beautiful words of Wordsworth.

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