The Diary Game//23.04.2025//A Story of a Rooftop Garden.

I hope everyone is doing well. In fact, everyone has a structured routine in their life, and I also experience interruptions and sometimes significant changes to that routine, but most of the time it follows the same pattern. By the will of Allah, I wake up almost every day between 5 and 5:30 AM. Sometimes I hear the Fajr call to prayer, sometimes I don’t wake up during my sleep, and sometimes, by Allah's grace, I wake up on my own.

After waking up, I freshen up and perform Wudu, and then I go downstairs to be with the residential madrasa students. I join them in offering the Fajr prayer and participate in their activities until around 7:30 AM while reciting Surah Yasin, Surah Waqi'a, and studying.

At 7:30 AM, I go up to the rooftop where I have a small nursery along with a little mango orchard and some small jackfruit saplings. Interestingly, about six years ago, I bought a mango sapling from the market for 500 Taka. The tree was bearing mango flowers, but those flowers did not survive. The director of our institution is my wife, and she loves the trees very much; she helps me water the plants every day. When we add the leftover parts from vegetables—like peels—to the trees, it is very beneficial, so she collects them every day and brings them to the plants.

One day, a lot of branches had gone bad in the house. She thought instead of throwing them away, if she placed them under the tree, it might be good. So, she carefully placed the branches under the tree. However, surprising it was that two or three days later, it was observed that the tree was dying. This caused her much pain; she wondered why the tree was dying. Eventually, the entire tree died, and it was discovered that the branches placed under it had contained salt, which is alkaline.

When salt is placed on a leech, it dies immediately. The tree became dry and brittle. Everyone saw the tree and suggested that it be thrown away, but she didn't want to discard it; she continued watering it. Her elder brother came to visit us, and since he is an agricultural officer, he examined the tree and confirmed that it was indeed dead and suggested discarding it. A helper, when hanging clothes on the roof, became quite annoyed and said that the tree was dead and that it wasn’t worth caring for; it had completely turned into wood.

When a branch is broken, it makes a crackling sound. Nevertheless, she didn’t listen to anyone and continued to water the tree as she pleased. She observed the tree, which was fairly tall, but there was nothing but dead wood to see. Thus, days passed—almost five to six months—and every day she watered that tree.

One day, as she was walking on the rooftop, she suddenly noticed a leaf sprouting from the center of the tree. Oh, how joyous she was! A leaf on the dead tree—how is it possible? She was filled with ecstatic joy and called everyone to come and see, urging them to come up to the roof to witness the new leaf on the tree. Everyone rushed up to see this astonishing sight; indeed, a dead tree had sprouted a leaf! The tree rejuvenated and became lush with many beautiful leaves. The tree was now full of foliage, and it was beyond words—filled with flowers and joy for everyone. Eventually, the tree bore about twenty mangoes.

It was incredibly beautiful, and all the trees were so splendid; truly, one would not believe how beautiful the mangoes were until they saw them. They were very sweet. At one point, it seemed that the tree was losing its strength, so I placed it in a larger barrel to boost its strength. All the mangoes were used to grow new saplings, resulting in many saplings from those mangoes. Interestingly, all of them germinated side by side at the same time.

Every day, I had to water them twice. Dates brought from the market, especially during Ramadan, were consumed in abundance, and I began collecting the date seeds. An idea struck me to plant a date garden of foreign date palms. With that in mind, I preserved all the seeds without discarding any, storing them in a corner of the rooftop. After finishing the construction of the building, excess stones and sand were left over. It occurred to me that date palms grow well in sandy soil, as they thrive in deserts, so I decided to try planting the seeds in the stone and sand mixture.

I carefully placed all the seeds into this mixture and began watering them twice a day. After watering, they dried out quickly, but it was noticed shortly afterward that many of the seeds started to germinate.

Today I bid farewell. We will talk again, InshaAllah. Assalamu Alaikum.