Sowing friendships

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Renowned bonsai expert Urvashi Thakker on nurturing a bond with stars Hema Malini and Swaroop Sampat.

Hema Malini

• I know Hema since 20 years. I first met her during the opening of my bonsai exhibition at Jamnabai School. 
• She looked so beautiful, almost like a Goddess. 
• Later she’d come home to learn bonsai.
• She is very fond of gardening. I had landscaped the garden in her Goregaon bungalow 10 years ago. Those days we would drive down to Aarey Milk Colony and other nurseries to pick up plants. Once she even brought a truck full of chrysanthemums from out of Mumbai. We potted them together.
• When she had been to Bangkok, she brought ‘lucky’ bamboo plants and orange bonsai trees with hundreds of fruits in a single tree.
• She used to love the yellow laburnum flowers outside Amitabh Bachchan’s bungalow Jalsa. She wanted the same in her garden. I got those for her and we planted the same in her garden.
• She’s always present when I plant the trees. She visits all her plants every morning and knows their history.
• Her favourites are flowers with a fragrance — son-champa (yellow flowers loved by Ganesha) and Kamini and Parvati (the white flower has an orange stem).
• She’s got a black female Cocker Spaniel and I have a black male one. We got them mated. She was present at the time of the delivery. After it she looked after the mother and the puppies very well. Later, she sent the pups to good pet homes. 
• Once Hema becomes your friend, she remains one for life.
  

Swaroop Sampat

• We have done bonsai together and even made and painted pots.
• Her favourite is the aesthetic looking bunjan plant. 
• It is generally considered that plants like sunlight. But it was Swaroop who told me that plants like night dew. Her mother stays in Gamdevi near Hanging Gardens. There the plants get dew and grow beautifully.
• Swaroop is very good with Ikebana and pottery too. She sits on the wheels and makes pots. She also makes beautiful jewellery with clay, beads, and shells.

Urvashi's oeuvre

• Began learning Bonsai in 1975 from Kammuben Patel, an IAS officer’s wife.
• Later learnt from masters including Jyotiben Parekh and foreign masters Chan (UK), Marshall (Switzerland) and John Naka (US). 
• Since then has landscaped for a hundred celebrity homes.
• Launched her bonsai gallery—Galleria Verdant on SV Road that houses indoor and outdoor plants early this year.

As told to Farhana Farook