IMPHAL DIARIES

LAWNS a sign of aristrocracy

I used to think why so many people maintain lawns n now seeing in lutyens delhi the love of people for bungalow s n their fetish for lawns... but now seeing it in IMPHAL which is naturally so serene n beautiful ...I penned down following

‍Lawns are some of the most mundane things in the world until you really start thinking about them. That's when you realize that they make no sense. Why do people keep patches of perfectly manicured, uninteresting, pointless little plants outside their homes? They're not beautiful like flowers, they don't provide food and you have to mow them constantly.

In the Middle Ages, when French and English aristocrats started putting carefully cropped patches of grass at their castle entrances.

Well-kept lawns demanded land and a lot of work, particularly in the days before lawnmowers and automatic water sprinklers. So a job was created for poor people... by landlords... 

Peasants could never afford wasting their time or land on lawns, so these artificial meadows were a perfect status symbol for nobility. They proclaimed,.....I am so rich and powerful, and I have so many acres and serfs, that I can afford this green extravaganza.

This status symbol ended up outlasting the monarchies that created it. Kings and dukes were toppled and killed, but new presidents and prime ministers kept the lawns.

Humans thereby came to identify lawns with political power, social status and economic wealth...

Rich entrepreneurs appeared on the world scene ... And they wanted lawns too.

In this century now middle classes have started being able to afford their own mini versions of wealthy manors: suburban houses. And guess what has became the ultimate suburban status symbol? A perfectly mowed lawn.

The popularity of lawns continued to grow, taking over public event spaces and sports. In the past, people played sports on all kinds of surfaces – dirt, ice, sand. But in the last couple centuries, they made the switch to green grass, or turf made to imitate green grass.

People like us may not realize it, but we also meticulously care for patches of grass because centuries ago, medieval French and English kings wanted to show off how many serfs they had ... by intentionally planting something useless. It's strange that people would continue to spend so much time and money on what's really a weird leftover from the Middle Ages. But that's history n reality

When we now come to plan your dream house, you might think twice about having a lawn in the front yard

You are free to shake off the cultural cargo bequeathed to you by European dukes, capitalist moguls and our netas – and imagine for yourself a  rock garden, or some altogether new creation...