Chilli Plant & Duality of Life

A fortnight ago, on a Sunday afternoon, I had sown the tomato and the chilli seeds together. Unboxing the kit I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside of me.

Tomato & Chilli Seeds Sown

As a regular practice, during the day, I used to place the two pots on the window sill and in the evening get them inside. They were both growing well at their own paces bringing joy in their own ways. One didn’t pop for a long time and the other was up and about in 3 days. Today too, another Sunday, they were kept at their respective positions.

Unexpectedly there was a terrible storm. It’s been slightly crazy with the monsoon here in Mumbai for the past month or so and I thought it’s one of those regular weather disturbances. In a few minutes of the windstorm beginning, the violent gusts were crazy. In moments before I realized, the chilli pot fell down. The tiny seedlings and all the manure was strewn below. Leaving behind nothingness. Out of my reach. Not giving me a chance to put anything back into shape.

Today too, another Sunday, they were kept at their respective positions.

Unexpectedly there was a terrible storm. It’s been slightly crazy with the monsoon here in Mumbai for the past month or so and I thought it’s one of those regular weather disturbances. In a few minutes of the windstorm beginning, the violent gusts were crazy. In moments before I realized, the chilli pot fell down. The tiny seedlings and all the manure was strewn below. Leaving behind nothingness. Out of my reach. Not giving me a chance to put anything back into shape.

I stared at the empty pot, held it in my hand, with tears welling. It pained. It hurt. It was similar to seeing your hopes crashing.

That’s how flimsy life is. It is there at one moment and not to be seen the next. I reminded myself of the singular truth of the universe – the duality that exists.

Everything beautiful also brings in a lot of pain. 

Each aspect of life is created keeping a balance in mind. The two opposite forces are usually also complementary. We’ve all gone through periods of ache, lived through dull pain, seen unfortunate events, or even worse, become indifferent to things that once mattered.

We live in a paradoxical reality.

Male and Female. Night and Day. Hot and Cold. Life and Death. Everything has it’s purpose and none is better than its counterparts. It’s like the two wings needed to bring in balance.

Nobody wants to be stuck in a storm, be it the external weather or in our lives be it the physical, mental or emotional aspects.

But, in the storms that shatter life as we know it, what’s really valuable becomes crystal clear. Our faith is refined. Our perspective gets altered. Through the adversities we stretch ourselves, learn to let be and let go and become more accommodating. Being humans we love placing the highest value on certainty and are happy when we have all things under our control. We make constant predictions, some turn true keeping us happy and a few others turn out nasty completely killing us and building in mountains of fears, doubts and tensions.

Will I still love the chilli plant? Maybe not. Should I still love it? Of course, yes. It has taught me to value the tomato plant more. When the latter grows big and flowers and fruits, I’ll know that through the pain endured the pleasure actually becomes more pleasurable.

Extrapolating it to our lives, this translates to as much as we are proud of some aspects of ourselves, let’s also learn to admire the parts that we have disdain for forgiving our imperfections. It’s the duality in our lives that makes each of us such ‘perfect’ humans.

Go back to seeing the chilli pot again. You’ll find it a less sturdy than the other one. Meaning the stronger and more composed we are any kind of storms can rarely topple us 🙂