Divya, The Autobiography of a Shivalik Cannabis Seed

In the heart of the Shivalik valley, a tiny seed opens its eyes and begins a life that is anything but simple. Friendships, rivalries, and a twist of fate that will change Divya forever. Can she survive what she never chose for herself? Divya’s story is not just about a plant; it’s about every soul that has ever had to rebuild itself from scratch.

Read this story in Hindi

Vijaya (the female cannabis plant) had already created her seed using the pollen of Achyut (the male cannabis plant) and departed after leaving it on Earth. (To know Vijaya’s story, read the first part of this series.)

The month of February has arrived. Spring has come to the Shivalik valley. There is slight moisture and warmth in the soil, and Divya opens her eyes for the first time. Stretching out one leg, she breaks open her shell and pushes out her first root, and when she opens both her arms, the first two leaves sprout.

Until now, no one has told her whether she is male or female, and it has not yet been determined biologically.

“Hey! What are your names?” she asked the other plants growing nearby.

“My name is Bhangi.”

“I’m Ganja.”

“Siddhida.”

“Manonmani.”

“I’m Vimardini.”

“And you?” everyone asked together.

“I’m Divya. I grew my first two leaves just today.”

“Welcome to our gang. I am the captain of all these plants because four days ago I grew two new pairs of leaves,” Ganja said, puffing with pride.

“Thank you.” Divya was very happy that there were others like her.

“Watch out! don’t take your root to the right side; there’s a rock there, it will stop your root,” Manonmani said, touching Divya’s root with her own, whispering with a giggle.

And so, the days began to pass happily, and all the plants started growing.

“Look-look, my leaves have grown seven fingers. You’ve only grown three so far,” Vimardini teased Siddhida.

“Sure, grow fast then. That’s why your colour looks dull. Didn’t you drink any sunlight this morning?” Siddhida shot back.

“Did you hear there’s a dance competition in the evening?” Divya quietly asked Manonmani.

“Yes. The wind has been blowing every day. So, Ganja, Vimardini, and Bhangi are going to sway in the wind to see who is the most flexible.” Manonmani replied.

All three plants were preparing for the evening dance competition. Ganja had grown the tallest of all.

“Hey, listen?” Bhangi asked Siddhida.

“What do you want?”

“Lend me a little nitrogen through the roots. I’ll return it as soon as the next rain comes. I have to beat that Ganja today somehow.”

“What do you think, you rascal! Do I look like some foolish pea plant that I’ll share nitrogen with you? No. I’m short myself. I won’t be able to give.”

In the evening, with a gentle breeze, the competition began, and all three plants danced so beautifully that everyone was left watching. Ganja once again asserted dominance, swaying her leaves so gracefully that Bhangi and Vimardini couldn’t do anything. Everyone played and had fun and eventually slept at night.

The next morning’s sun was slowly hinting toward summer.

“Step back. Don’t block my sunlight,” Vimardini said irritably to Siddhida.

“You can absorb all the sun you want. Ganja will always be stronger than you, Vimardini.” Siddhida said laughing.

A few more weeks had passed. The hot dry month of May, and the scorching hot winds were troubling all creatures without roots.

“Look, I grew two more inches taller last night,” Siddhida said to Vimardini.

“Yes, your nodes look very strong.”

“I want to become even stronger. A nice fibre coat is forming on my body.”

“Right. In winters, it will give you good protection.”

“But you have 11 fingers growing in your leaves. You don’t look any less beautiful.”

Vimardini felt somewhat shy upon hearing this and began looking at the soft white hairs that had appeared on the nodes of her stem. She felt heavy and dense, and somewhere she knew she did not want to grow tall like Siddhida.

(In male plants, pollen sacs emerge, and in female plants, hair-like structures called pistils appear on the nodes. This is where the sex of the plants is being determined.)

“You took water from behind that rock, didn’t you?” Manonmani asked Divya.

“Yes, and I also made a friend there, a fungus,” Divya replied.

“Oh really, you made a friend?? You haven’t forgotten, have you, that we can only love our own kind,” Manonmani said teasingly.

“Oh no no. We just do business. In exchange for minerals, it takes sugar from me.”

“No wonder such a wonderful fragrance is coming from you.”

“Yes, I’ve been puzzled about it too. Siddhida and Bhangi also keep looking at me a lot,” Divya said shyly.

“I look at you too, and look, in two months the monsoon is coming, and by then, I will have silkier fibre and become stronger.”

“Alright, let’s see. I’m still trying to understand what exactly is happening,” Divya said, thinking to herself.

“I don’t understand this Ganja and Bhangi.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Ever since Ganja retired from the captain’s post and Bhangi became captain, a kind of distance has come between the two of them.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”

(After sex determination, female plants primarily release fragrance for the purpose of reproduction and continuation of lineage. This process works like a pheromone releasing volatile organic compounds to attract insects.)

Bhangi was cooking. He had made his stem considerably hollower compared to the others. Because of that, he could transport minerals and nutrients to his entire body much faster. The taller he grew, the farther his pollen would travel and reach the females.

“Hey look, you’ve started growing earrings!” Ganja teased Bhangi.

“So, what, and you’re growing white hair too. Forget ever having the same height as before.” Bhangi replied.

“Hey look-look. A grasshopper is coming.”

“Quickly make your leaves more bitter and hot,” Ganja advised Bhangi.

“I don’t have poison like you to make them bitter. Besides, if it eats my leaves, all my nutrition will go to my stem and fibre, which will be useful to me in the monsoon.”

“I have felt that even though we are alike, we are so different.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are tall. Your coat is so thick. I am not tall, but I am spread out, and my leaves are bigger and darker green than yours. A sweet and sharp fragrance comes out from me. There is also something inside me that protects me from these grasshoppers. Other animals come and eat your leaves more than mine.”

“What are you trying to say, Ganja?”

“I feel like I want something but can’t figure out what.”

“That must be your imagination. I feel nothing of the sort, and right now my focus is on strengthening my body.”

(Female cannabis plant leaves are more bitter compared to male plants because they contain a much higher quantity of resin glands called trichomes. These trichomes are primarily responsible for the bitterness of the cannabis plant and the intoxicating compounds (THC) present in it.)

“Hey look-look. A herd of goats is coming,” Ganja shouted.

It was as if a commotion broke out among all the plants. Everyone else was saved, but one goat came and ate all of Divya’s leaves and half of her from the top.

Summer had passed along with the monsoon, and now the plants were entering their busiest, most stressful, and most complex phase.

Among the male plants, Bhangi had emerged as the tallest plant because of his hollower stem and sprawling roots. The taller he grew, the farther his pollen would travel and reach the females. Siddhida and Manonmani had also advanced considerably by taking good nitrogen with the help of Vimardini and Divya. Their fibre coats had kept them sufficiently flexible in proportion to their height, so that even as they grew tall, they did not break in strong winds.

Ganja and Vimardini had made their fibres rigid and their stems somewhat stronger, because their bodies needed to be strong enough to bear the weight of their flowers. Their roots were not spread out superficially like those of the male plants, but were deep, to find water sources that would keep them alive for a long time.

“Oh wow! You’ve grown like a crown of hair,” Bhangi said, complimenting Ganja.

“Yes, after all I need good pollen too. There should be no shortage in the glory of my next generation,” Ganja said in her own delight.

“Hey, did you smell Vimardini’s fragrance? She smells like a mango,” Siddhida said to Manonmani.

“Yes! But I prefer Ganja’s lemon-like fragrance more.”

“Speak quietly! Otherwise Bhangi won’t leave you alone.”

“So, what do you think? Will Vimardini take pollen from both of us?”

“Get out of here, man. You go to your Divya. Why are you eyeing others?”

Manonmani looked at the knot on Divya’s fibre, which she had slowly healed after the goat incident. To protect herself, she had formed a few pollen sacs inside herself.

(When a goat eats the upper parts or leaves of a plant, or when there is a drought, or when there are no male plants nearby, the plant becomes severely damaged. For cannabis, this becomes a ‘life or death’ situation. The plant senses this as danger and feels that its death may come soon. In this circumstance, it urgently wants to reproduce in order to continue its species. And it develops both the pollen glands of a male plant and the pistils of a female plant in the same plant, due to which that plant is called hermaphrodite.)

“Why are you doing this, Divya?” Manonmani had asked her two months ago.

“I have no choice. To save myself and my future generations, I will have to become hermaphrodite.”

“Then what will happen to me? To whom will I give my pollen?”

“But what if a goat comes before that and eats either of us? Will you be able to save me from that goat? If some person comes and rubs me to smoke charas, or if someone takes you away to make cloth from your fibre, what will you do then?”

Manonmani could say nothing and quietly began to keep to himself. In this process, the fungi and bacteria were helping Divya considerably.

“My wounds are healing, but my heart is breaking. I pushed Manonmani away because now I myself have become my own world. Am I still the same as I was?”

“Be patient! I am filling your wounds with glucose. You changed your identity so you could survive. In nature, ‘survival’ is the greatest art. You are not alone, we are all part of your network,” the fungus said, healing her wounds.

“We are creating a nitrogen circle near your roots. You no longer need Manonmani’s support; your own strength will now become your seed,” the companion bacteria said, helping her.

On that night in September, Divya had fallen asleep looking at the stars, and her mother Vijaya came to her. Touching her old wounded knot, she said, “This has now become your strongest part. This scar is not a mark of weakness but of strength.”

“But mother. All the other plants look at me strangely.”

“Yes, they will look, and perhaps they will not understand either. But you need no one. You have both pollen and flowers. You are complete in every way.”

Saying this, the image of her mother began to fade.

“Mother, wait! Don’t go,” Divya called out, and her eyes opened.

Her mother was not there, but she had received an inner comfort that perhaps only a mother can give to her child.

By the time October arrived, cannabis plants had fully grown. Bhangi, Siddhida, and Manonmani had shed their pollen, left behind their beneficial fibre and light stems, and had died. By November, Ganja, Vimardini, and Divya had also created their seeds, left them in the soil, and passed away. In the soil, fungi were eating their roots and preparing nutrient-rich soil for the next generation of seeds. Nearby, a human boy and a human girl were sitting having tea.

“Oh wow! These look like plants with very good fibre,” the boy said to the girl.

“Yes!” the girl said, uprooting the stems of Siddhida and Bhangi.

“Come, let’s put them in water. Then it will be easier to extract the fibre.”

The two of them took approximately 400 male plants from the surroundings and put them in water. And they separated the seeds, leaves, flowers, and stems of the female plants, and put their stems separately in water as well.

“Come, let’s make sanitary pads from the fibre of these plants,” the girl said to the boy.

“Yes, that’s a very good suggestion.”

“But what will we do with the remaining things?”

“We’ll break the inner stems into small pieces, mix them with lime, and make bricks from them.”

“And from the seeds we’ll make oil and protein, which will help us with physical health.”

“From its leaves, we’ll make Ayurvedic medicine to cure people’s illnesses.”

“And the flowers?”

“The flowers are illegal. For now, we cannot legally make anything from them.”

“But the greatest medicinal benefits are from the flowers.”

“Yes, but we have to look at the law too.”

“Never mind, let’s start with the sanitary pads first and then see what comes next.”

The story of Vijaya and Divya does not end in just two years. In the next part, we will learn how that boy and girl carry forward the legacy of Vijaya, Divya, and the other cannabis plants. We understand the difficult life of the cannabis plant, but what can we learn from it as human beings, and how can we form a relationship with that plant? We will come to know that in the next part….