Dear Agony Akka,
I live in a sylvan apartment complex in the heart of the city. Yesterday, our Residents’ Association president announced that we should celebrate Van Mahotsav this week, and pot different species of plants and trees in our houses and colony pathways. While a great initiative, the problem is my balcony is already overrun with 10 different kinds of plants (most of them invasive), thanks to my husband who is a gardening enthusiast. While I appreciate the greenery, I have barely an inch of space there to stand with my cup of tea. How do I dissuade my overenthusiastic husband from bringing more alien species into our house?
— Suffering Torture of Eco-friendly Male
Dear STEM,
I am a bit shocked that you think the balcony is a place to stand and drink tea. Every sensible urbanite knows that the balcony has a lot of important roles to play in modern-day apartment living that have very little to do with drinking tea. I am now going to proceed to list a few such roles.
1. A place to dry clothes. Wearing wet clothes can give you pneumonia, so people usually prefer to dry before use. For this purpose, balcony is useful with plenty of sunlight and air.
2. A place to keep washing machine. Apartments these days don’t have enough space for humans, so gadgets and appliances have a particularly hard time. Outlawing them to the balcony is a smart move.
3. A place for washbasin. For some reason, Chennai architects find it compulsory to add a washbasin in dining room. It is as if after eating, one must wash hands within stretching distance itself. As a compromise solution, some flats now put the washbasin in balcony.
4. Room for children. One fan, one screen, one table-chair in the balcony and hey presto, the 2BHK becomes 3BHK.
5. Botanical gardens. My cousin sister in Velachery has created a mini tropical forest in her balcony and it overflows with orchids, cacti, creepers, ficus and two Venus flytraps. In the small patch that was left, she has now started a vegetable and herb section. Effectively, only bees and leopards can feel at home there now.
6. Shopping mall. The balcony is also a good place from which to have shouted transactions with watchman, neighbours and vendors, which often involves complicated manoeuvres of letting down bags with money and pulling up bags with bread or bananas.
Given such varied use of this spot, if your balcony has only 10 different kinds of plants right now, it means you have too much vacant space. You can consider sub-letting it to a leopard or human being (after adding washbasin). Or you can allow your husband to follow your Residents Association president’s advice and add more plants.
If you still insist on drinking tea there, then try to set up a machan between two-three of the largest potted plants and perch there with your cuppa. You will have the advantage of being able to keep an eye on the surrounding jungles to see when the Residents Association president is approaching. As he comes within range, carefully aim a small potted plant on his head.
Frankly, your Residents’ Association president sounds slightly anti-national to me, almost verging on an urbane rascal. Instead of focussing firmly on keeping out external enemies and supervising internal security, he is wasting time on environmental affairs. At the very least, please ensure that the plants he is planting in the colony pathways follow the orange, white and green colour scheme. With August 15 coming up, it’s the least he can do.
— AA
agony.akka@gmail.com
