Dede Sophie

There is so much more to India’s rich festivals than wearing new clothes, eating good food and catching up with family and friends. While all of these are feel good factors of our festivals, there is so much richness and culture in our festivals. And unfortunately, this culture is not easily seen in our cities. To see this, we have to head to rural India where the people still keep this richness alive.  Luckily for me, I was at a traditional village called Kallidaikurichi in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu a few weeks back during the festival of Shivaratri. Unlike the festival of Pongal which is very vibrant in the villages of Tamil Nadu, the festival of Shivaratri is more subtle or at least that is the case during the day time. The day starts as usual with a bath in the Thamarabharani river, offering prayers at the nearby temple and then heading home. Most people either opt to keep a full fast or at least stay on a liquid diet. The whole day is spent chanting hymns of Lord S

Ok, so I accept that ‘why I hate exotic gardens’ is a bit strong in this context (especially the ‘hate’ part) but I do get really frustrated in the Spring by the lack of seasonal interest in tropical effect gardens. Of course Lorna does not agree with me but I feel I have made a decent case against what appears to be the current fashion. If you are going to plant up a strictly exotic garden then you will have a long wait until you have a rich and fulfilling display of plants. In most cases this won’t happen until about June which means you have to wait a good three months while your plants sit and wait (mostly underground) until it is warm enough for them to emerge, sprout, blom etc. This is all well and good in a public display, where you have set you certain arbitrary parameters, as you have a choice not to visit it. However when you trying to achieve this in a private garden you are going to have to get used to a desolate show for the entire spring! If you would like to see more con