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Bonsai as a wall mural!
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The little green dwarfs have now assumed many more avatars to suit contemporary tastes. Take a look at mural and ‘mame’ bonsai, says RANJANI GOVIND
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— PHOTOS: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.
IN A NEW FORM: Sujatha Prakash’s mural bonsai is eye-catching at the entrance of her house, just as her mini bonsai garden where the tiny ones live for three decades.
Generally the word ‘Bonsai’ is used as a misnomer for any type of plant grown in a shallow container. The science of Bonsai, actually, has to do only with trees and shrubs. Any other plants grown in the same way is termed ‘miniature gardening,’ clarifies Sujatha Prakash Devatha, one of the Bonsai experts in Bangalore who has at least 500 varieties in her sprawling garden in Jayanagar.
That the green science has now assumed contemporary perspectives and is being presented in different format is what gives the whole effort a further dimension to the creativity.
What Sujatha has attempted for the new age is Mural Bonsai that is displayed at the entrance of her house. A patch of shrubbery nestled in rocky surrounding is all that you notice from the gate.
As the green impels you to get closer to the wall, all you can do is take a deep breath and wonder how the leaf-and-stem marvel is seen hanging as a mural, live and growing! Green, earthy and aesthetic is the literal description that can be attributed to the piece that can arrest one’s attention. “It took me more than a month to have the piece together,” says Sujatha.
— PHOTOS: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.
Fourteen kinds of shrubs in different shades of green had to be selected to bring them together for a green mural. Aligning them along with mud-embedded roots for the bottom were tasks that required all the experience and skill. Placing the pebbles to give the whole piece a nature-friendly appearance is yet another dexterity, highlighting her expertise. The rough stone wall on which the mural is displayed provides a perfect backdrop to an ethnic work that demands loads of patience.
The mini wonder
“Not just patience, you have to have the persistence to wait for it to grow. Because some of the varieties take months to show up the first shoot and some special specimen even take 6-8 years to achieve a respectable tree form,” says Sujatha, as she takes you along her ‘Mame Bonsai’ (mini) collection area.
Toddler trees of a hundred varieties are seen in different containers, all placed artistically to form a pattern in her garden. Some are placed in niche spaces in heavy logs.
If bonsai is itself a world of miniatures, then ‘mame’ is minuscule! We come to learn from her that any tree from a height of 2 to 6 inches is called ‘mame’ (pronounced ‘mamay’) and most of them can be done using coconut shell containers.
“Mames have a shorter life span of three decades compared to some trees that go on for centuries,” says Sujatha. “That is why contemporary thinking has it that just like tortoise which is a positive symbol for longevity, feng shui experts now recommend having bonsai for signifying endurance and permanence,” she says.
Then comes the ‘midi bonsai’ which is 6 to 12 inches in height and the ‘tall bonsai’ which is 12 inches onwards. The styles vary from curved trunk, upright, slanting, cascading, windswept, rock-clinging, raft, group-planting, literati, multiple trunk to umbrella or broom where the main trunk line growing upwards branches out like a standing broom…all done with the skill of using wires for directing the growth pattern.
Bonsai has an ancient history. As with most of the oriental arts, Bonsai originated in China and then spread eastwards to Japan. The knowledge was spread by Buddhist monks through their manuscripts and paintings that revealed the art to have existed as far back as 1000 BC. The two countries believed in miniaturing plants as a science and strongly had the notion that nature brought into small containers had certain mystical and magical powers. Bonsai — ‘tree in a tray’— is now an export-oriented industry making inroads into western markets as well.
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Property Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
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