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Mahadev's garden was the talk of the town. He didn't own acres of land. Nor did he possess anything like a riverfront villa to plan and experiment landscaping or cascading. A man of moderate means, not brilliant, not even ambitious, he managed to emerge out of the college, a graduate. It was an achievement in itself. He took up whatever job came his way, as an accountant in one of the local medical firms. Of course he knew how to make the best of what he had. He worked hard, cultivated the right kind of people and soon rose to the rank of an officer. His wife Radha Bai brought with her a modest dowry. A down to earth man, he invested it in a cottage left behind by a family, which had migrated to the U.S. People laughed at him for buying a house in such a dilapidated state. But the price was affordable. In fact it was so temptingly low that Mahadev just grabbed it. He was confident he could transform the ruined cottage into a beauty, which he did in no time. He did not go looking for architects. With the help of a few labourers he pulled down windows and doors, changed the entrance, repaired the leaking roof, plastered and painted the walls and planned and lay around the house, a neat little garden. The garden, a semicircle in shape, set the house idyllically in a leafy frame. Mahadev had worked a miracle on the house. To those who walked on the road the cottage appeared like a house in a picture postcard.

The wicket gate, which had an arch-shaped arbour of creamy cherry blossoms, opened to a narrow pathway, fringed on either side by ferns. The path led to a flight of stone steps, straight to the main entrance. Mahadev did not believe in identifying his house by a number as the City Corporation decreed. He chose a name for it. Aishwarya. Yes, that was what he would call his home. Prosperity for himself, his wife and his little daughter. In golden letters he inscribed the name Aishwarya on the right side, above the panelled door.

The layout of Mahadev's garden could have been the envy of any horticulturist. With great care and precision he fenced the garden, not with barbed wires, but with hardy and thorny shrubs, sporting flowers, which gave out a strong pungent smell. It helped to keep cattle away. In the four corners of the garden he planted varieties of palm under which he grew colourful beds of begonias and violets. He chose flowers and foliages, perennials and annuals of various shapes and colours. He mixed and matched, blended and contrasted and the result was a riot of colours and a range of intriguing shapes. It was a small but a breathtakingly beautiful garden. As seeds sprouted into shoots, spread into stems to branch off, budding and blooming, Mahadev stood watching as though mesmerized.

Radha, his wife, was slender, small-made and her 'startled deer' eyes, which made her look so lost and lovable, were hauntingly beautiful. Of course Mahadev doted on her. But she dressed so sloppily and the colours she chose! How could she be so clumsy? As for the art of house keeping she knew nothing at all. Mahadev was quite shocked. He couldn't blame her though. After all she was a farmer's daughter. Sure, she felt uprooted in the big city and Mahadev's urbaneness must have been un-nerving. In any case, he couldn't expect her to be an architect or an artist like him. Mahadev knew he must at once take charge of the situation. He happily set about arranging the wardrobe of his wife. He made sure, he picked the right colours and the right design—pastel shades and small flowery prints. And Radha soon emerged as a worthy match to her husband. After all wasn't Mahadev an immaculately dressed man? The creases of his trousers were always intact. He wore shirts, only white, which were spotlessly clean, his tie was perfectly knotted, and his black leather shoes were polished to shine.

During the early years of their marriage Radha's effusive ways—Mahadev called her naive and artless—used to embarrass him. It might be morning or evening. Radha might have been in the kitchen, frying fish. Or she could have been drying her hair over the fumes of incense sticks. If an aircraft came zooming by, ladle in hand, towel flung over the shoulder, she would rush out of the house. Straining her neck, with wonder-struck eyes she would follow the flight of 'the giant silver bird' as she called it. "Those tiny dots, are they not the windows of the plane? Can you look down through those windows? I am sure, your head would go spinning"; she would gush on, breathlessly. When she walked on the streets with her husband, an ice-cream parlour, the brilliantly lit display-window of a shop, even a tall building -anything or everything could make her swoon. Credit should go to Mahadev. He never lost patience with his wife. Neither did he ever bully her. Stern looks; stony silences or a few frowns were more than enough to bring her to line.

Radha had no great talent to boast of. But she had a sweet voice and she could copy the catchy tunes of the popular movies almost effortlessly. But Mahadev had his own views about music, "There is nothing great about vocal music", he often told her. "Why don't you try to master an instrument? Give voice to a violin or a veena. You will know how much talent you have, how much power you have."

Mahadev's wisdom always inspired her. She did get herself a veena. Turning the knobs on its sides, she tried to tighten and loosen the strings, moved her fingers up and down with devotion. But as luck would have it the veena refused to respond to her. That was how her foray into the world of music had come to a full stop. When the little girl arrived Radha was only too happy to leave her in the safe hands of her husband. Mahadev took all decisions and masterfully managed all crises. She cooked and cleaned, washed and bathed Pushpa and dressed her always in white muslin frocks, as her husband had wished. With the precision of a wound clock, she measured her days over the errands, she ran for the family.

Radha would have loved to cuddle and croon over her little daughter. But she knew it wouldn't be proper. Mahadev wouldn't have approved. After all he had  high hopes for his daughter. He wanted her to flower into a fine lady. No parent was as enthusiastic as Mahadev; at least that was what Pushpa's teachers thought. He supervised her schoolwork, helped her with all her assignments. There was no question of Radha coping with all that. Numbers puzzled her - she kept a neat record of acounts at home though! - History and geography, she had left far behind. In any case she was awfully busy. When she was not cooking she was stitching, when she was not stitching she was cleaning. But father was always there for Pushpa. Mahadev taught her how to play badminton and chess. He sent her across to the old Anglo- Indian lady who lived all by her self in the corner house to learn 'piano and painting'. It was Mahadev again who told her to graduate in Home Science. Pushpa had always wished to be a doctor. She was disappointed. It was one of the rare-occasions when she had tried to talk to her mother. Pushpa distinctly remembered what her mother had said, "Father knows best" Years ago, when she sketched a garden spider in her drawing book, she remembered, father was visibly disturbed. He had asked Pushpa to sit in the garden and draw whatever she liked best. Of course father had expected her to turn up with the reproduction of a rose or a sunflower. But the eight gnarled legs of the spider and its silvery web mystified Pushpa and she copied them on the paper.

"A delicate girl like you, how could you choose a spider?" Father had been astonished.

"What is so delicate about being a girl? What is wrong in sketching a spider?" She had turned to her mother. Mother had said, quietly, "Father knows best".

When Radha grew weak and pale Mahadev was quite concerned. The family doctor ruled out any major illness. She needed nutritious food, rest, fresh air and some tonics that was what he had recommended, but strangely enough Radha grew only weaker and paler. Her movements were not any longer lithe and graceful. With stooping shoulders and down cast eyes she moved around the house trying to cope with the chores- Strangely enough no specialist could explain why her skin reacted so strongly to the rays of the sun. If she ventured out even for a short while her skin would weep and erupt into small angry - red pimples- Gradually she stopped moving out of the house. Shielding herself from the glare of the sun, in rooms darkened by thick curtains, bent over her prayer books she spent her last days. When she died the doctor said her death was due to heart failure. How strange neither Mahadev nor Pushpa ever suspected, she had a weak heart.

When Mahadev pulled out one of the photographs of Radha from the family album—Radha in her bridal finery— Pushpa took the responsibility of getting it framed. It was a black and white photograph. Pushpa insisted on getting it enlarged and coloured whatever might the charges be. The photographer had put all his technical skill- mounting, laminating, and all sorts of special effects into the portrait. And there she was so frail, so ethereal like an angel—a guardian angel-perched on the wall, keeping a fond watch over the family.

The day mother died was painfully alive in Pushpa's mind. It was a winter afternoon, a Sunday. She was in the study room grappling with an equation in algebra. A fresh fruity flavour came wafting in. A date cake! Pushpa's favourite. But mother was so sick she shouldn't have been anywhere near the kitchen. Pushpa ran out of the room. Radha had just taken the cake out of the oven. On the kitchen floor soaked in sweat she had soon collapsed. Pushpa had no appetite for food for days. But she guarded the date cake furiously for one full week refusing to share it with any one.

Retirement didn't bother Mahadev. Friends had their own fears. Radha gone, Pushpa grown up - busy as she was with her studies -home couldn't have had much charm for him. But it was heartening to see Mahadev back in the garden with renewed vigour. Weeding out flowerbeds, mowing the lawn, repairing the fence he spent his days blissfully! That was the time when he had turned to bonsai. To begin with it looked like a passing fancy. Soon it became a passion with him. For days and days he combed nook and corner of the market and came home with containers and pots of variegated shapes and sizes - round, rectangular, oval and square. In no time he mastered the art and science of bonsai. Methodically like a scientist, he measured the soil sieved, and dried it, planted seedlings strategically in the containers, in the middle, to the right or to the left according to the shapes, he had envisaged and planned for them. He acquired for himself a brand new pruning kit. It was a treat to watch him at work. With great care he cut the root ends. Delicately, neatly he pinched and pruned the stems. With skilled fingers and appropriate tools he gave the trunks an intriguing twist, a shapely slant. If the branches took off on their own, in an attempt to rise and spread, he arrested them, promptly and expertly with a wire or a twine. Not only peepals and pines, Mahadev successfully managed to dwarf even fruit trees. Orange, apple and lemon. The miniatures stood on attractive stands or on raised platforms as the crowning glory of his garden.

Mahadev had always wished, if only Pushpa would lend him a hand in the garden! Weeding, watering or at least cleaning, she could have, in fact she should have definitely done her bit. But he was surprised, even hurt, she had never offered him any help. Across the dinner table only the other night, Mahadev had tried his best to draw her out.

Whatever had happened to the pomegranate buds? A brilliant red, anxious to bloom, there were five of them. He remembered, he had counted in the morning! Where were they? The rectangular tray in which stood the orange tree had a crack right at in the middle. What a calamity! One of the prized branches of the pine tree had snapped. The missing limb lay a few yards away. Mahadev ran to the fence. Was there any gap in the fence? The Dalmatian next door? Had he got out of leash and crashed into his garden? He looked around in alarm. The lemon tree—only the stump remained! All the branches were cut off. Yes, they had been neatly cut off.... No Dalmatian could have done that.......

The wicket gate clicked open. It was Meenu, Pushpa's friend. .In her usual busy way she breezed in. Behind her the dainty gate swung to and fro on its delicate hinges .She had not bothered to close it, Mahadev noticed with a frown. Careless and clumsy! How could Pushpa be so friendly with her? .But where was Pushpa?

"I left Pushpa at the station. She is taking the Frontier Mail to Bombay”. Bombay?

“Come on, Uncle! Don’t tell me you didn’t know, she had got a teaching job in Bombay. Lucky, it is a residential school. Don’t worry. She will be fine. Here, she has left a note for you and the keys”

That was the duplicate set of house keys which Pushpa used to keep with herself. Mahadev stared at it blankly. In a piece of crumpled paper she had scribbled

 " I am going away"

Going away? Why?

She never said she had any such plan!

Has she really gone to Bombay? Where could she have gone?

Mahadev slowly walked towards the splintered base of the pine. He must file it, at once. He opened the pruning kit. Clippers and scissors, trowels and shears, one after the other, tumbled out of the kit. Kneeling on the hard earth with shaking hands - neatly covered in garden - gloves - he listlessly rummaged for the right tool. His gold-rimmed spectacles sat delicately balanced on the bridge of his aquiline nose. The cool evening breeze fanned the leaves and shook the ripening oranges. Mahadev shivered slightly.

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