What do you see, weeds or plants?

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.

A A Milne

A day after the lockdown period ended, I was sitting on my balcony, watching the garden. For a long time, no one had worked in that garden, but suddenly I noticed people removing the plants. I couldn’t understand why they were pulling out the very plants that had soothed me during those dreaded quarantine days. As I watched from above, the entire green area turned into a bare brown patch. The plants with lush green leaves and tiny flowers were now lifeless, thrown into a garbage truck.

The next day, I saw gardeners unloading tiles for a new lawn. It occurred to me that all those plants had been removed because they were considered weeds! But how do we decide what counts as a weed? Those plants with beautiful, tiny flowers had a meaningful existence. They supported countless insects and worms, added beauty with their green foliage and blossoms, and thrived without any assistance from gardeners. They lived and flourished with just rainwater, decorating the land with their mere presence. Yet, when the decision was made to beautify the garden with a lawn that requires constant care, these little plants had to give up their place—and their life—because of someone else’s perception of them as weeds.

Mr. Milne expressed it beautifully: “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” We need to be open to seeing things from different perspectives to appreciate the beauty of those little flowers and blades of grass.

The lawn grass in a paddy field would be considered a weed. If rice plants grew in a flowerpot, you might remove them as weeds. We label anything we don’t want at a particular place and time as a weed and pull it out. It’s our perception of the situation that decides what a weed is.

By the time I finished my work and returned to the balcony with a cup of coffee, I saw neatly laid lawn tiles being sprinkled with water to grow faster and greener. In a matter of days, I would enjoy the sight of a beautifully manicured lawn.

It’s the human way to interfere with nature. We remove what exists naturally and plant what we prefer. We cut down trees and then cry out to plant more. We kill animals for fun, meat, or skin, and later create slogans to save them. We pollute the planet and then fight to reduce the impact. At the end of the day, we are humans!

—Anitha KC