“Do not do this to me, again!” Kamala yells as one of the botanists takes out a syringe and fills it with flowering medication. Since the day she was brought to Nepalgunj, she has been injected with FLOW12, but in vain. The gigantic pink funnel-shaped scented flowers which she used to give birth to in her childhood days never developed on her arms anymore. How could they? The heat of Nepalgunj outdoors is enough to kill Kamala, let alone the flowers they hoped she might bear.
She receives half a dozen other medications along with FLOW12 for different purposes—one for smooth breathing, another for enhanced photosynthesis, another for improved absorption, and who knows what else! Among them, FLOW12 is the deadliest. From the point of incision, the drug blazes through the xylem akin to lava after a volcanic eruption.
Ten years ago, Kamala was transported from the feet of Kanchenjunga to the Himalayan Floral Camp in Nepalgunj, established by the Nepali government to breed mountain flowers in Terai. A plant among thousands in the Laliguras hills of Taplejung, she was randomly selected for the experiment, separated from her kin and forced to survive in a humid hell. She will always regret allowing herself to get captured. Had she known her fate before, she would have tried her best to prevent the misfortune.
Rate–a street dog in the camp is the only friend Kamala has. Though there are many plants, dogs, cats, and other organisms, Kamala finds her heart in resonance with that of Rate’s. He is the only place where she feels at home in this distant land of the sun. Rate reminds her of the slick, snow-drenched mountains, bare hard rocks, and icy gusts of wind traversing across the woods– her motherland, whenever she feels anxious and helpless. Even though Rate has never been to the North, his imagination of the place is shaped by Kamala’s vivid utterances during her reveries.
Rate too, was trapped in the camp out of nowhere. One day, he was strolling through the streets in search of food when he found a cavern. Entering the cave led him to a forest consisting of diverse plant species, plants he had never seen before. In the beginning, he wanted to exit from this dreary place where hundreds of plants were dying each day, thousands rotting with the melancholy of missing their homes and never being able to return to a place where they could naturally thrive. Later, when he met Kamala, he felt terrible for the misery she was going through, compelling him to him to stay and try to help her He did this by finding out as much as he could about the camp, in the hopes that someday he could help her escape, though this seems unlikely. He is himself locked up in an enclosure. The only time he tried to break away, he ended up shattering his teeth.
They now have more information about the camp than they know what to do with. Located along the Nepalgunj-Rupaidiha border, the camp spans ten bighas of wetland. The area is completely fenced with high stone walls, like deserted prisons with different sub-camps constructed inside for distinct purposes. Most of the camp is dedicated to the cultivation of alpine plants like Kamala, as though trying to prove that these plants can survive tropical regions if forced to. But all the plants suffer, and most of them die. Among many plants that find themselves rooted at the camp, Kamala is one of the few that are surviving. And she was in terrible pain.
***
“Is everything alright? Did you have that dream again?” Rate asks when he finds Kamala’s spindly leaves falling down on the ground.
“Yes, The wilderness was calling to me again, Rate one that sets everyone free and creates order that mere rules fail to do. Where the steppe eagles scribble verses on the heavens and chant around the Himalayas. Where my past is buried, and so is my destiny, yet to flower.”
Lightning cut through the dense air, and Kamala trembled. “I could not withstand the forces hauling me towards somewhere, I cannot exactly remember where it was but somewhere in my native place. I am terrified, Rate. I do not know if I can survive more.” She said.
“It is always a burden to be caged–caged by others or oneself. Being caged by others is the utmost burden”, Kamala exploded.
“What does the world want?”
“Why do they envy others’ happiness?”
“Why are not they content with what they have?
“Why do they want to make everyone live like themselves?”
Kamala usually kept her pain to herself. But today, her heart is exploding like a watermelon dropped on the ground. The pain has found its way back to where it had begun—an experiment doomed to fail from the very start.
As Rate watches, Kamala’s pain comes to an end. She breaks free from her caged body. In equal parts anguish and relief, Rate watches life leave Kamala. First, her leaves fall, and then her branches give away too, dropping to the ground. Blue liquid oozes out of the nodes, the excess FLOW12 in her body.
Whether or not she finds her abode is a question but she will definitely discover peace and freedom far away from this failed experiment by humans.