Blogging, Gardening, and Wellness through Nature with Dr Amrita Basu

Dr Amrita’s journey began with the discovery of the therapeutic power of green plants in her balcony, leading her to embark on a blogging adventure. During the pandemic, she delved into growing her own vegetables and actively participated in tree plantation, finding solace, peace, and renewed energy in the process.

Dr Amrita Basu is an ENT surgeon with over sixteen years of professional experience. She is a writer, blogger, podcaster, artist, mother and gardener. She firmly believes everything she does is because the universe wanted her to spread the message of health and wellness.

Gardening and blogging since 2014, she knows these two are her guardian angels when it comes to living a happy life.

We’ve been watching her journey with blogging, gardening for a while now and recently we had a talk with her to dive deeper.

Let’s go!

How did Dr Amrita develop this strong bond she has with nature.

When I was a teenager, my study room overlooked the next-door garden. Our backyard had a jackfruit tree which bore golden fruits every summer. The next-door garden and our backyard were always green, attracting chirping birds and a very serene view whenever I looked up from the books. In standard nine, a school project for raising your own plant was given, and I came first, raising a yellow pansy plant. That was a thrill growing, my plant friend. But then twenty years passed before I started a new job in a small town with a ten-month-old baby and three empty balconies staring at me.

Lonely days of adjusting to a new place were gently made possible by making friends with plants for my balcony. That was a turning point in my life because that’s when I also started blogging.

The green plants improved my indoors and opened up a window in my brain that I never knew existed. I blogged when I hadn’t ever heard of the word blogging before 2014. I realised my plant friends brought a gift for me. A gift of creativity of creating stories from words, of drawing pictures from air.

The journey of growing her own vegetables, very different from buying from the market

I started growing my own vegetables in 2020 during the lockdown. Initially, only green leafy veggies on the balcony and windowsills and then from 2021 January on our family plot in the village. We grow many seasonal vegetables throughout the year. Ladies’ fingers, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, pumpkin, papaya, coriander carrots, radish, spinach, lettuce, cucumber, bitter gourd, cauliflower, broccoli are all grown in our kitchen garden.

We also have Guava, Litchi,Banana, Mango, Java apple /Jamrul, Chikoo trees. The vegetables and fruits are grown with only organic locally available manure. No chemicals are used. Farm to table veggies taste crisp and delicious, even boiled and lightly sauteed. My daughter loved he broccoli stir fries I made with broccoli from our garden last winter. Imagine kids loving broccoli!I didn’t as a child.But vegetables grown with love ,tastes better and stays fresher for longer time.

Her significant involvement in tree planting

This was also during the pandemic lockdown. First, we planted flower trees in the front yard of our village garden which previously had one Tagar/Jasmine, a Betel nut, one Neem and two Moringa trees. We realised not having a place to walk or play in the open air was having an adverse effect on us. Also my daughter missed her friends from school. So, with a few like-minded friends, we looked around for plots of land to buy. As the saying goes, the universe gives you what you look for and we were very lucky to get neighbouring plots of land with friends. We were surrounded by mango orchards but some of these lands were now barren. We kept areas for play and started planting in the remaining areas. That’s when we planted mango trees, guava trees, mahogany, ticoma, papaya. It’s been a year and a half since we started planting.

Being in the midst of nature is healing

It’s hard work and we need help to do it and maintain it. But the sense of peace doing the work and watching trees grow cannot be expressed in words. It changed me, my attitude towards life and has given me so much positive energy that no amount of therapy could have given.

Mental health was a struggle for me before, and being among plants help me fight my demons with more power and clarity. Because nature teaches me about patience, persistence and balance.

Two hours of roaming in our gardens every week is a must for our family and our friends. That’s a ritual we started during the pandemic and was the best thing that happened to us in the last three years.

Dr Amrita’s involvement with the environment has had a significant impact on people close to her.

There is definitely increased awareness. My daughter loves watering plants, picking vegetables from our garden and is passionate about taking care of our plant friends. My sister is an avid balcony gardener, my husband who grew up in the village surrounded by mango trees, now has a renewed passion for planting more mango trees and reforesting barren lands. The friends who socialise with us are partners with us on plantation activities, and have even bought adjoining lands!

The interesting part is we seem to now find people who love trees and green spaces more frequently than before. We even holiday in places close to nature.

Gardening is not just a hobby it can change your life, your balance.

Caring for the environment goes beyond isolated actions or mere words. It is a lifelong commitment and a way of living. My personal goal is to contribute to the creation and inspiration of numerous 1000 square feet forests, as I believe in the power of collective efforts to make a lasting impact on our planet.

It’s also a way to grow local and eat local. It sustains local economies, retain soil cover, prevent erosion, lower local temperature. You won’t believe how cool a mango orchard is even on a hot day, until you visit one. There is increased awareness, but nowhere as much as needed.

Some tips for people to get motivated to begin gardening, even in a small way

People are too busy surviving. In cities with pollution and low oxygen content your brain is struggling with daily life. You can’t breathe the horrible air and you have nowhere to run. With poor air quality, creative thinking and proactive thinking takes a backseat. But once you start getting your indoor air cleaner and better with a few green plants, you will start finding ways to make your environment greener.

Start with one plant. Just start. Then try to make the community where you live greener. Start a community garden, a rooftop garden. Get people together and you will find help from unexpected places.

Plants are the best friends we can find. They are absolutely no trouble and only give you oxygen, good vibes and helps you feel good by release of endorphins. It’s a known fact that green is the colour of wellness and no one can have enough of that.

We are a part of the environment, just like everything in nature. Nature requires a balance. The more we take care of the environment, the better we will live. Quality of life is a balance of internal and external environment. Trees help root the soil and being around trees helps you root your mind and body. That’s the reason behind my book How to Walk, Write and Garden for the Healthy Life You Want, my podcasts on the topic and why I write about gardening and the environment.

“Nature is not a place to visit, it is home.”

Gary Snyder

Gardening, even in small ways, can be a life-changing endeavor, and as Dr Amrita encourages, we can for sure start by taking the first step in our own simple ways. She believes that nature is not merely a place to visit, but a home where we belong, and calls on everyone to prioritize the care and preservation of our environment for a healthier and more balanced life.

You can tweet to her @misra_amrita

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