Green Fingers:

More on Night-time Angel

Ravindu MAHENDRA

People call KADUPUL the Orchid Cactus purely because of its growing habitat. They both are Epiphytes meaning they both prefer to grow on a host; it could be something like a tree bark. Otherwise no connection is found between them.

In Sinhala KADU means swords and UPUL stands for water lilies. It really looks like a water lily and the tender petals look sharper as swords. One day my father told me about a legend attached to this plant:

There was a hermit who lived in the woodlands with a great mission to achieve enlightenment. Once he was walking through the woodlands and stopped by a pond which was belonged to angels.

The angels always danced by the pond bank in the moon light. On that day, they were still dancing on the pond bank. They saw the hermit and jumped back into the pond, freezing themselves as water lilies fearing that their dance might disturb his meditative mood.

There was a huge fig tree growing by the bank and the hermit sat by it to continue his meditation. The angels stayed still until he leaves, time went by and the moon light started kissing angels wings again. Hermit stayed still in his meditative mood. The angels started to continue their dance again but quietly.

Somehow the hermit became distracted by their dance and was attached to their beauty. The angels' guilty feeling made them remain frozen forever. God observed this and felt sorry for the angels as it wasn't their fault at all.

The angels tried their best to not distract the hermit. Therefore god took them out of the pond and put them onto that fig tree as a reward so the angels could have a better life. Since that day the water lily became detached from the ground. They continued dancing up on the tree branches but remained quit and performed only in the night time.

KADA stands for detachment so it had changed to KADU. In that sense the KADU-UPUL stands for a water lily detached from the ground.

There are so many kinds of Orchid Cacti which exist in different colours and shapes; not all flower at night and wither with the dawn. Some flowers last more than a few days. I find that KADUPUL (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) is an extraordinary plant because of its fascinating flowering habit.

A few years ago, during my Sri Lanka visit we stayed in a hotel in Unawatuna by the beach. We found a great fig tree by a temple in Yaddehimulla road. The tree bark was completely over taken by KADUPUL. Luckily, lots of buds were waiting to open that night. I grabbed the chance to see their opening ceremony for the first time in my life. Every single second was worthy. Silky white petals gradually started to open as moonlight appeared.

The air was filled with a very delicate perfume. There were about two hundred flowers. Standing in front of that giant fig tree looking at the midnight angels we both really felt Mother Nature's smile as she whispered with the moon.

The following morning we went there again to visit the flowers. They'd all gone to sleep. We talked to the family who lived near by the fig tree and got to know them very well. They were KADUPUL lovers, and showed us their own plants in their front garden. They seemed a very genuine and a happy family. After several years of visiting Unawatuna they became very close to us.

During the tsunami devastation we lost lots of people we knew but the family survived in a bitter pool of tears. They had lost everything they had except for hope. Our visit at that moment meant lot to them and we were honoured by a tiny KADUPUL, planted in a coconut husk which survived the Tsunami.

Sadly, even though I was longing to take it back to the UK we had to leave it in Sri Lanka due to customs' rules and regulations. After explaining this to my mother, she offered a new home in her garden to it, and she seemed not to hold that superstitious belief against KADUPUL any longer. It is still living and flowering there with her tender loving care.

Whenever I get close to this heavenly flower, it whispers to me saying how Mother Nature is so kind and fair to the 'restless world' in the calm night-time.

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My notes on Samson - 8

Remember, I mentioned about a trainer last week? Though Samson stopped jumping at people, I don't know for what reason, many people said that he should be trained. It was to be a sit-stay-fetch kind of training. He still had that habit of biting our fingers whenever we nuzzled his muzzle. It was not like when he was a tiny creature. The bites were now becoming painful. It had to be stopped too.

Looking for a trainer was a burden again. One of my father's good friends introduced a trainer - I mentioned last week - an expert trainer of Police dogs.

The fair complexioned tough looking guy had a look at Samson. He called by his name, but the little fellow didn't care for the stranger's call.

He was gazing with his fear-struck face at us. The trainer had a small talk with mother and me, while Samson was listening with cocked ears. Little by little he got familiar and the trainer was no longer a stranger to him. The trainer called again by name, this time to get a positive response.

Before his visit, he instructed us to buy a choke chain over the phone. We had no idea what a choke chain was, but anyway we bought it.

The trainer's first lesson was to train the trainer-to-be, the owner. He first explained the necessity of a choke chain. A choke chain is put around a dog's neck. You can pull the chain making him choke, whenever he disobeys you.

When he obeys you, you release the chain. For me, this sounded too harsh, but seemed an interesting training method.

After the trainer left, I googled the choke chain, and found the following. Just go through it, if you are interested in choke chains.

The proper way to put on a choke collar is to put it in front of the dog so it looks like a horizontal 'P.' The leash is attached to the ring that does not have the collar sliding through it. From the leash then, the collar runs over the top of the dog's neck and then around to the other ring. When placed on your dog in this manner, pulling on the leash will cause the collar to tighten. When you relax the leash, the collar loosens.

If placed on your dog incorrectly, the links of the collar go from the leash through the other ring and then UNDER the dog's neck. If placed on your dog incorrectly, the collar will often not automatically loosen when you pull on the leash.

It is best to receive training from a dog handler or trainer on the proper use of a choke collar. Injuries to dogs have occurred when the collars were incorrectly placed on the dog or used improperly. If your dog is very small or has a respiratory problem, choke chains are not recommended.

Alpha Samson