Ikebana
Do you know those Japanese flower arrangements? Nicely trimmed branches, one flower standing there like it pays taxes and meditates daily. The kind of thing you would imagine a rich lady with white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows keeps in her house and calls Zen.
I hate those.
I think at some point in my life I actually used to like them. During Ganesh Chaturthi or Diwali when we decorated the house I would try making arrangements like that. Put them in the prime viewing spot too. Right where guests entering the house would see them.
Not because I liked flowers that much.
No no.
This was a status thing.
Envy ye peasants for thou shall not acquire the taste and sophistication required to place three sticks diagonally in a ceramic pot.
But as I grew older I started disliking them. Then slowly I started disliking well-maintained gardens overall.
Perfect lawns especially.
There is something unsettling about grass being forced to grow evenly. Trees trimmed into neat little cubes. Flowers arranged so precisely that they stop looking alive and start looking employed.
Imagine you are born a tulip.
If you are lucky the wind throws your seed somewhere random. Near a muddy field. Beside a broken wall. Somewhere nobody really planned for you to exist.
Otherwise you are planted carefully.
Your soil is monitored. Your water arrives on time. Somebody rotates your pot towards sunlight every morning before you even realize the sun moves in the first place. Bugs are removed before they can touch you. Dry leaves clipped immediately. You grow up believing this is just how life works.
The gardener provides.
And honestly the gardener probably does love you.
But every drop of water costs something.
The healthier you grow the more careful the gardener becomes. More trimming. Better fertilizer. Bigger pots. More concern in their voice whenever one petal bends slightly wrong.
Soon you start worrying too.
Maybe you do not grow properly.
In which case the gardener becomes anxious. Then disappointed. Then quiet.
You try your best obviously. What else are you supposed to do? You are literally a flower.
But one day you are uprooted anyway.
Not violently either. Which somehow makes it worse.
Or maybe you bloom beautifully.
Then everyone is happy.
The gardener finally relaxes. Guests admire you. Other flowers are placed around you. Your stem is cut cleanly and arranged inside some expensive building lobby where businessmen walk past you while discussing quarterly revenue.
People look at you for a few seconds and think wow.
Then continue walking.
By the end of the week your petals start browning near the edges. The water smells strange. Someone replaces you with fresher flowers.
Your entire life optimized just to become decoration for a room with centralized air conditioning.