I AM A GARDENER

(Excerpted from Life is a Frolic by Goolbai Gunasekara)

I like gardening and use it to deflect all sorts of advice (make that criticism) that comes my way via exercise-mad KitKat (my granddaughter) and my Offspring, who also studied ballet in University in addition to her English degree and never quite got over the exercise regimen. She still maintains a rigorous program — alack and alas for me! She has this ‘up and do it’ attitude I find totally demoralizing. Whom am I kidding? I’m just born lazy and do not like being told that enjoyably sitting still is not on a sensible person’s agenda.

This exercise craze is not to my liking either, my biological clock ticks far slower than do those of today’s women. Neither Offspring nor grand offspring can bear to see me doing nothing that is not contributory to my own physical well being. Theirs is doing excellently well thanks to all these motivated teachers of exotic keep fit classes for the upwardly mobile sets of Colombo.

The very names of these routines were not heard either in my school or anywhere else come to think of it. We just did plain old P.E. at Bishop’s or played tennis if we felt particularly energetic after getting married. We did not don marvellous designer outfits and sally forth to achieve slimness and alluring silhouettes. We settled down to children, Bridge and a certain unavoidable plumpness.

Not so today. KitKat returns from Zumba, Salsa, Pilates, and other tantalizingly titled exercise routines, glowing with health and well-being, to find me – glass of wine in one hand and book in the other, enjoying the coolness of evening. This upsets her equilibrium enormously though I can’t think why.

“You’ll get old before your time you know,” she tells me.

“I don’t get your point. Anyway, I AM old and in case you hadn’t noticed, take a look at the perfectly manicured lawn. I’m quite exhausted.”

She snorts. “You mean you told Raji where to cut and snip while you stood under your parasol.”

“Certainly not.”

I am affronted. I actually DO garden. My former Secretary, Viv, used to find that a hard-to-believe scenario.

“Do you really garden Mrs. G.?”

“Of course. Every day.” “Like what do you DO?’

“I cut the grass.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” she yodels. “With an electric machine!”

I bristle. “Certainly not. I use the hand mower and I push it myself.”

Viv can’t call me a liar but her expression does it for her. “You cut the lawn yourself?”

“I told you – yes.” “How often?”

“Once every ten days like clockwork.”

“If it rains?”

“Then the next day.” “You actually garden?” I am losing patience.

“Yes, yes, yes and I’m very good at it.”

“You mean you use garden scissors and things like that?” “Honestly Viv,” I yell. “Come and have a look.”

So now I tell KitKat smugly that I’ve been energetic in the extreme. She can see the lawn for herself Of course, I see no need to confess that the neatly trimmed edges were (done by hands which were not necessarily mine. Raji, the maid and garden helper, is not one to dissimulate. Before I have time to tell her to shut up, she has told all.

“Aiyo baby. The back is breaking after cutting edges.” I am dismissive. “That’s all she did,” I say lightly. KitKat is actually impressed.

“Well done, Achchi,” she tells me a trifle suspiciously. “But there is always tomorrow. You can’t cut the lawn EVERY day…” She consults Offspring. The two of them have just handed me the following gem… “Health for the over 70’s.”

I rejected it firmly. Who wants to pass 80 if one can’t eat, drink or DO ANYTHING worthwhile? I might as well sell my lawn mower and go downhill with a glass in one hand and a book in the other yelling, (as a picture on YouTube showed me recently) “Yoo Hoo! What a ride.

(Goolbai Gunasekera’s latest book Life can be a Frolic! is available at leading bookshops)