CHENNAI:Chennai is wilting under the blazing sun and everyone is looking for ways to stay cool. Garden enthusiast and the city-based Bharatanatyam exponent Revathi Ramachandran says that having a terrace garden helps in beating the heat, significantly! As we walk through her terrace garden, next to her dance-rehearsal hall, she says, “It’s wonderful to have a garden so close to the place where you dance. Sometimes my students help me in watering the plants and we even have small fun activities along with rehearsals. And the little ones? They love to eat the mint leaves!” she laughs.
As we cross the dance hall and open the door to the terrace garden, a gentle fragrance of basil, tulsi, kanakambaram and mint envelops us. “Look at those fresh tomatoes!” exclaims Revathi. What started as an experiment, gardening became a passion for the danseuse in 2016. “It was in early 2016... I had been to an exhibition in Kalakshetra and brought home a gardening kit. It had seed samples of tomatoes and brinjal and that’s how I started growing my own veggies,” she says. After the first tomato plant flowered, an excited and thrilled Revathi began to grow flowering plants along with fruit-bearing ones. Now she had chilies, capsicum, papaya, ladies finger and avarakai, among others. “I use veggies from my garden for cooking and most of the flowers are used to decorate the idols of Gods and Goddesses,”she says.
With guidance from a neighbour — Sumitra and, Prabhu, who runs a solar nursery in Mandeveli — Revathi set up an elaborate terrace garden. “As a child, I remember having a huge garden with big coconut and mango trees, and a big ‘malli poo pandhal’. It is difficult to have such sprawling gardens when you are living in apartments, but even a small space is enough to have your own green space and that’s the need of the hour!” she says, smiling.
Revathi grooms her plants every other day and she enjoys doing it. “I love spending time here,” she says, and adds laughing, “But, sometimes it becomes unmanageable.”
Jasmine, Arali, Mana thakali keerai and Nithyakalayani or myrtle are other plants that adorn her garden. “Nithyakaluyani is said to be very good for patients with cancer. All you have to do is boil the petals in water and drink the water and it’s said to do wonders,” she says.
She uses 100% organic’ fertilisers. “I don’t get time to make my own... I buy them... turmeric water, panchagavya, neem oil and ashes we get after doing a ‘homam’are very good for the plants and keeps insects away,” she says.
With a busy schedule throughout the year, how does she find time for her garden? She shares an incident. “I was travelling across the country for a dance performance and, when I came back, the few plants I had had withered. No one had watered them and that was the deciding point for me... I knew I had to spend at least a few hours with them every day.” Be it rains, the draining heat or even during the infamous Vardha cyclone, Revathi says she makes sure that she protects her garden. “I sit here even if it’s high noon,” she says. “The plants keeps the place cool.”