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Showing posts from March, 2024

The Community Garden: A Story of Tolerance

The community garden notice board had become a battlefield, and Deepa stood before it, wondering how a simple vegetable plot could cause so much discord. The latest salvo was a typed note complaining about Mr. O'Brien's towering sunflowers blocking the sun from surrounding plots. Below it, someone had scrawled a complaint about Mrs. Patel's wind chimes being "culturally inappropriate." Three separate notes argued about the proper way to compost. As garden coordinator (a role she'd inherited when no one else volunteered), Deepa had spent more time mediating disputes than actually gardening this season. Her own plot of traditional Indian vegetables was suffering from neglect, much to her mother's dismay. "Those American tomatoes," her mother had sniffed during her last visit. "They're taking over your karelas. You're letting them crowd out your heritage." Deepa hadn't bothered explaining that the tomato plants had actually bee...