The front yard, balcony, and two levels of terraces — Soumyen Chatterjee loves his greens and has done up his house with different themed plants in different zones. The front has Allamandas and Lilly ponds, the veranda has seasonal flowers and the terraces have the choicest fruits and vegetables. Chatterjee spends time with the plants twice a day and that, he says, keeps him going.
I grow my plants in memory of my late mother, who loved gardening. Whatever I know, I’ve learnt by assisting her. Today when I see a flower blossoming or a fruit ripening, I feel she’s watching from above.
This winter we have flowers like Marigold and Incas and vegetables like Pui Shak, Palong Shak, and Sheesh Palong, that is not easily available in markets. We grow enough Coriander to not have to buy them anymore and our Supuri trees bear so many Supuris that passersby come and buy them from us!
Among fruits, there are Star Fruit, Chiku, Pineapple, and sweet varieties of Amra and Jamrul…. How do they taste? Well, I can’t always say as we barely eat them. We leave them on the plants for birds and langurs, who come to feast on them. We even have pictures of my grandson handing bananas to a langur.
It’s a challenge growing Bananas in pots, even more so Grapes, for which we erected overhead meshes. Now delightful bunches of Grapes hang from the top.
On the balcony, my wife Swarupa waters the plants and on the terrace, I’ve devised a system to water them almost automatically. The greens are planted in flowerbeds and there are taps every three or four feet away, doing away with heavy watering cans and clumsy hoses.
In our staircase is a replica of French painter Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. I love that image so much that not only have we built Lily ponds on the ground floor but we also got architects to study the Japanese bridge in that painting and build a similar one on the second level of our terrace.
Grapes hanging from an overhead mesh
The flowers and bridge create such an ambience that I’ve added a wall hanging of the Buddha up there and call the terrace “nirvana”. During the lockdown, I got bored and started producing films and music videos and many of our scenes have been immortalised amidst these greens.