The Tulip bloom may be seasonal but the efforts behind the bloom aren’t restricted to a particular season…“
The 2022 edition of the Asia’s largest Tulip Festival has recently concluded at the Indira Gandhi memorial Tulip Garden (IGMTG), Srinagar, Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K UT). Expressing the jubilance on the success of the festival, Incharge and head of the management staff, Dr.Inam tells The Voices, “It has been a great festival this year as we have witnessed a footfall of around 3.60 lakh visitors which is the highest ever since the opening of the garden”. He attributed the success to many reasons including ease in travel restrictions post COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, a good bloom and the government’s advertisements of the festival. But then the triumph of the festival does not only owe to these apparent reasons. The toil behind the Tulip bloom accounts to the gardeners, who every year work tirelessly in order to infuse the space of the garden with the captivating shimmer of varieties of Tulips.
The garden is maintained by the Department of Floriculture, J&K UT and at present the department has employed some 112 workers as the management staff of the garden. 70 amongst the total work as gardening staff. The Voices explores the shades of efforts of these gardeners.
Year long efforts for a seasonal bloom
The Tulip bloom may be seasonal but the efforts behind the bloom aren’t restricted to a particular season, tells Ghulam Hassan, senior gardener, IGMTG. Hassan, 55 has been serving in the Tulip garden from last 7 years and working with the department since last 32 years. He says,
“Even though the Tulip bloom occurs in the spring season yet we have to work all the year round for the upkeep of the garden. Once the Tulip bloom is over in the month of April, we remove the tulip bulbs from the soil and place them very carefully according to their colour and variety in the cold storage facilities,this continues for the entire summer season till the month of August.After this from the month of September till mid November ,the tractors are run on the fields for leveling and fertilizers are added in order to prepare the soil for the next sowing season.The sowing season begins from the last week of November and continues till January during which the bulbs are carefully removed from the cold storage area and brought to the fields for sowing.Later from mid January to mid March maintenance activities are carried out wherein weeds and other unwanted plants are removed from the tulip fields”.
He also says that Tulip cultivation doesn’t require much irrigation and when there are enough rains then the water requirement further decreases. Ghulam Hassan resides in the Hawal area of Srinagar District and has two sons and a daughter who are studying.
Smiling through the struggles
Life on personal front for these gardeners is essentially a quest for basic necessities of life. But amidst all the struggle, a smile is what reflects their spirit. Abdul Majid Kuchay, 56, another senior gardener, has been working with the department since 1994 and has served in various gardens across the valley. 3 years ago, he joined Tulip Garden. Tulips to him are a bliss being nurtured. But he is equally proud about nurturing the ‘noor’ of his eyes i.e 3 daughters and a son. Devoid of any sort of formal education, Kuchay, aspires to educate all his children.
Mohammad Yousuf Khan,59 is the Head Gardener of the Tulip Garden. A resident of Manasbal area of District Ganderbal, Khan, has been working with the Department from 1983. Although he has studied only upto 8th standard, yet he is very well versed in Kashmiri language. Interestingly, he has written 2 books in Kashmiri language which were published in 2019 and 2020 respectively. He regards his books as the treasure of his life and believes that they will serve the future generations.
Service regularisation is an area of concern of the gardeners. Riyaz Ahmad Khan (32), Bilal Ahmad Mir (35), Sajad Ahmad Mir (32), Mohammad Ashraf (36) are amongst the young non-permanent maintenance staff in the Tulip garden. They have been serving in the Garden since 2008 and are awaiting regularisation of their services. They including the other non-permanent staff members receive a meagre salary of 6750 rupees a month in this era of rising inflation.
The staff members while posing for a group picture tell The Voices that it is only during the Tulip Festival that they secure a break from work. With all smiles they donned their uniform hats and displayed victory signs owing to a great Tulip festival this year as their hard work has paid off but they perhaps yet to receive their due.
Edited by NK Jha
Image credit: Syed Tooba
