Plants and Us: An Observation...

Growth is not a linear process. Not for humans, neither for plants.

For more than one year, I have this Rubber plant with me.

After a few weeks of bringing it home, it stopped growing. I thought may be there was a problem with the soil it was in. So I changed the soil, added some compost and repotted it in a bigger pot. But nothing happened. I thought that the plant would simply die. Nearly two months went by. The plant did not die, neither did it grow.

Then, one day, to my surprise, I noticed that the top red shoot of the plant had been a bit larger. And after one more week, a reddish, soft leaf peeked from it.

It was the cutest little thing I had seen in a while. I went crazy with joy. 3-4 more leaves grew. But, then the growth stopped again.

I was worried. What happened this time? Added some fertilizer to the soil. Sprayed some micro-nutrient to the leaves. But, nothing happened. So, I just waited.

Just like before, after a few months, new leaves started emerging.

The growth stopped again a few weeks ago. But this time, I did not put much thought into it. Neither did I add any fertilizer. Now, today I noticed that the top shoot has started bulging again. It put a smile on my face. The growth phase of the plant has started again.

Just like plants, us, humans, also, do not grow at a continuous fashion. Sometimes we flourish, sometimes we do not. Sometimes, some tragic thing happens to us. All we need to do then is "survive." Then again, one day, we discover ourselves moving forward in life. This process continues. This process is LIFE.