CHENNAI: Upon entering Sri Krishna Yoga Wellness Centre, one can smell the soil and trees that are just a tiny part of Vedu Parthasarathy and her daughter Mimi’s home. The place might seem to end at the green diamond-shaped wire fence, but Mimi remembers her grandfather using it to keep them from stomping all over his vegetable garden as kids.
Before the trees were allowed to grow and take over the garden, Mimi’s home had a manicured garden, more grass and tiny flowering bushes and shrubs. “Now, my mother and I have decided to just let the garden grow. A few years back, we decided to put the walking pathway so that nobody slips while walking through the place, especially during the monsoons,” says Mimi.
Their home in Malleswaram has a Yoga studio, where around 80 to 100 people come at different times of the day to learn yoga, pranayama and meditation. The main house, where Mimi and her mother live along with all the dogs they have rescued, is surrounded by heliconias, bilwa, badam trees, Bodhi and ficus trees, a mango tree that’s more than a hundred years old, a Krishna ficus that Vedu planted for her granddaughter, cannonball trees, rare black bamboo trees, along with all the trees that her grandfather planted.
Mimi also brought in a few plants, such as the Queen’s Trumpet from the family’s coffee estate.
As long as she could remember, Mimi has been amid plants and trees. Growing up, her interest grew. “There was a time when the rains in Bengaluru were scarce and we had to get water tankers to keep the garden thriving.”
Mimi remodelled the cowshed 13 years back, where she now runs her financial advisory company, Sinhasi Consultants Pvt Ltd, out of. But the Barbados cherry tree that the cows once loved, stands tall in the middle of the office. ‘We have tried not to harm the plants as much as we could while building the place,” she says.
Mimi takes no credit for building the garden. “This is all my mother,” she says. Sitting in the middle of a well-watered garden, 82-year-old Vedu still worries about how there are no rains and her plants
would die.
“My mother loves her plants and trees very much, and worries about them. This constant attention to the garden has kept her active at her age,” she adds. Mimi is happy that her daughter Hamsini has taken an interest in nature too. Hamsini, a conservation biologist, is currently working with WWF and works on identifying and protecting endangered species.
“My grandfather planted trees for me. My mother plants trees for my daughter. I believe in returning to one’s roots is important,” says Mimi, hoping that her daughter will take over their garden when she returns to India.