The Black Prince

My Ma, a not so efficient housewife and an extremely loving mother, was a nature lover. She loved growing flowers in her garden. Unfortunately, except for the sturdy wild varieties, she did not have much success with any of the rare and exotic flowers she planted in her garden. This fact, however, did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm. She kept on collecting these varieties either from the nurseries or from other people’s garden. Back in the eighties, when we were growing up, people in small towns enjoyed the luxury of having a big garden or lawn in their homes, Ma too had a lot of space to carry out her experiments.  

In one such trial, she planted a rare variety of rose which the seller had told was named ‘The Black Prince’. The color of the rose she was told would be a deep red, that would appear almost black and it will bloom only rarely maybe just once in a year. Now, if you knew her, my Ma was a highly transparent person and anything that happened in her life like the maid taking a day off, husband’s delayed return from his office travel, one of her daughters failing the maths test was promptly communicated in the neighborhood either when one of the neighbors dropped by or she telephoned one of her friends or simply by shouting across the fence. For a person like Ma, who thoroughly enjoyed all the small joys of life, the planting of the black rose sapling was quite an important event. Others in the household were skeptical if the rosebush would even take root. But Ma followed the Black Prince’s progress every-day with un-failing enthusiasm. And luckily this time the plant was taking good shape and within a month of planting, when the bush was hardly 5 inches tall, a small bud appeared. Ma was delighted and all her family, friends and neighbors were regularly kept in the loop about her joy. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that others around her also seemed to have become interested in the flowering process of the Black Prince; anyone dropping by was taken around to have a look at the black prince.

One morning the Black Prince came to full bloom. And the name was apt indeed. The color was a rare dark red and the rose was a real beauty. Everybody who saw the rose admired it. Ma checked its presence at regular intervals and hoped that it would grow bigger the next day. Back in those days, the kids stole flowers from the neighbors’ garden to gift it to their teachers in sc

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hool. You also had to be careful about the garden gate, if somebody left it open a goat or a cow was likely to stray in and munch on your plants. Ma kept alert for the eventualities, shooing the children and reminding everybody who left or entered to close the gate. At around noon during one of her rounds, she found the flower missing. Ma checked the site thoroughly for clues and found that the flower had been carefully cut, perhaps with a pair of scissors. The smooth job was certainly a human act, she concluded, that of an adult- not done either by a child or an animal. Saddened and furious by turn she questioned everybody around. My father’s office was located on the same premises, she enquired from the office staff and the watchman about her black prince. Everybody she spoke to, though sympathetic with her plight, was clueless about the disappearance of the Black Prince. Perhaps, they might have been a bit apprehensive too – not to be mistakenly charged for the theft of The Black Prince. After sharing her anguish with the office staff and some next-door neighbors and unable to solve the mystery of the disappearance of her black prince, Ma, at last, decided to retire to her bedroom for some rest. While still sitting on her bed, her eyes strayed on the flower vase on her bedside table. There was her black prince in it, looking lovingly at her.

Of the feelings ma experienced on seeing the rose in her room, it will be difficult to describe. It was a mixture of relief, curiosity, and exasperation and for once, it left her speechless. It was late afternoon by then, and my Baba had just returned from attending a meeting outside and he decided to check on Ma before going into his office. Ma kept staring at him when he entered the bedroom. Though not a great one in catching the nuances of everyday female conversations, somehow Baba was able to gauge the temperature of the room and hastily rushed to explain, he had cut the rose and arranged it nicely by ma’s bedside. He explained that somebody else would have picked it definitely if he had not ...so. Only he had forgotten to mention it to her. 

Black Prince flowered once or twice more till we occupied that house. After Ma had regained her composure that evening, she told the story of the first flowering of the Black Prince with great energy to all her friends for next several days, by visiting them and/or by calling long-distance.