Marigold and its enemies

As a pastime, we decided to grow some flower plants in front of our house in Oleander. Most people here have a gardener. We did not hire one since we planned to stay here for short time. We bought some plants from a nursery in Pekanbaru, friend Mila sent some seeds of Cosmos flower from her garden and I bought some Sunflower & Dahlia seeds from Carrefour. We also got some yellow Hibiscus plants from a nearby house. Adi & vrush watered them daily & these plants started flowering in 3 months.


These flowers attracted butterflies & bees, Adi used to enjoy the sight every morning. There were lot of monkeys around, but did no harm to these plants. The real threat came from wild pigs. These wild boars roam around freely inside the camp at night in groups. Couple of times we spotted them very close. They dig the ground, looking for earthworms. Few times they even dig the lawn and uprooted our flower plants.


We found a new enemy when we planted some marigold plants. We raised these plants from the seeds we bring from Medan, north Sumatra. We planted them in three places in our yard. Every morning, I used to watch the growth of these plants. After a month or so, when these plants were about 6 inches long, I noticed some strange development. Suddenly these plants looked like someone stepped on them. I could also see some fresh leaves chop down on the ground. I suspected this is done by some kind of bugs or caterpillar on the plant but nothing was visible. This continued & in few days, few marigold plants lost all leaves & could not even stand straight.

I became cautious and decided to solve the mystery before this happen to other plants. At night around 10pm, I went out with a flashlight to see what’s happening with Marigold plants. Generally no one ventures out of house at this time of night in Oleander; it may happen a wild boar may charge on you from nearby bush. It happened with me previously when we were staying in Iksora Complex, it was at around 9pm, after dinner I went out with my bicycle to have a round to the complex since the weather was cool & there was moon light. Just behind our house, I saw some movement near the flower plants; I thought it is a rabbit. With curiosity, I got down from the bicycle & went near the plant to have a closer look. Just then I heard a loud scream & saw a huge wild boar charging towards me. Within a split second I was on my bicycle, peddled like hell to reach home. Thank god it did not chase me till home. It seems I misunderstood piglets to rabbit and the mother boar, charged to me.

When I flashed the light to marigold plant, I noticed the movement in the plant. Being extra cautious, I went closer to see what causing movement. I could not believe my eyes, there were 4 - 5 big snails! They were eating the marigold leaves as if it is a tasty food. Some of them even climbed the plant to mow the leaves! Vrush and Adi stood by surprise too. We were expecting something, some bugs, but not snails. I always thought snails are harmless. Here, it looked like they were determined to destroy our marigold plants.

I hand picked these snails, & throw them on other side of the road, towards jungle. Still it was a mystery for me, why these snails try to eat only marigold leaves. Later I searched in internet & found out some very interesting fact. Marigold plants have a strong smell. Because of this smell, generally bugs do not eat marigold plants. People grow marigold in vegetable plantations just to keep the bugs away. However, Snails & Slugs gets attracted to marigold plant because of this smell. They like this smell & these plants are tasty food for them.

After reading this, I noticed there were slugs too. There were 7 – 8 slugs feasting on marigold plants. Somehow we removed the slugs too & throw them away.

I also got some information in internet on how to save the plants from snails & slugs. Most famous one was the ‘beer trap’. Snails & slugs easily get attracted to a bowl of beer kept near the marigold plant. They drink the beer and could not get out from the bowl. Next day morning, these can be easily destroyed.

I had few cans of Heniken at refrigerator but did not like the idea to share it with snails.

Next morning, my Indonesian friends gave me few other ideas like spreading rice husks around the plants. Snails cannot crawl through such sharp objects. However I preferred to eliminate them, by picking them & throwing away, as this provided enough excitement for Adi too. Every night, just before Adi goes to bed, we get ready with our flashlight for snail / slug hunt. We are quite successful in our efforts too; marigold plants are grown almost two feet long now, may bare flowers any day.

A day at Riau University

One of my team member, Kasman Arifin, is doctorate in economics and also visiting faculty in Riau University. One day he told me he is planning to invite me to university to speak on something. I thought he is not serious & accepted his invitation.

Few days later, to my surprise, I received a letter from University of Riau, inviting me to be a guest speaker on an event organized by Economics Faculty English Club. I had to speak on subject “English is essential for job seekers”.


I got little nervous. Although I did training in JDE many times for number of people, this is something different. I am going to speak in front of large crowd, in a stage, without help from PowerPoint slides. When I do JDE training, half of my power comes from these slides. Apart from this, there was no time for preparation, since I got this invitation just a day before the event.


Kasman informed me there would be around 50 students. I just prepared a chit with the points which I need to speak & kept in my pocket. Saturday morning, Kasman came to pick me up. Vrush & Adi wished me luck, as if I was going to appear for some exam.


Kasman has a nice car. I complimented him on having such a posh car. He said it valued Rupiah 850 million. That’s huge money (around 42 lakh Indian Rupees). We went to his house first to pick up his son. I saw a very old model of Land Rover parked in his garage. Kasman said he bought it in 1984 & it is still working fine. Two expensive cars..Kasman must be very rich guy. His father worked for Indonesian Army.


It took almost an hour for us to reach the University campus. The Campus was huge, with lot of greenery inside. A group of students greeted us with smile. For most of them, I was the first Indian they met personally, so naturally they showed lot of interest on India, Bollywood & especially Shah Rukh Khan.



I think I did a good job on the stage. I speak for almost one and half hour on the subject, without looking at my chit. I was successful keeping the students engaged till the end. There was a question – answer session after the speech. That was really a interesting discussion. Some students had the opinion that they don’t need to learn English to get a job in Indonesia. They defended their statement saying all the popular books, magazines, movies etc are translated to Bahasa Indonesia so they don’t need to learn English at all. I was able to convince them that now world is a global village & they have to compete with people outside Indonesia, not just within Indonesia. English is the global language & they have to master it to achieve this.




The organizers rewarded me with a token. We took some photographs & students dropped me to the camp. It was a memorable event, thanks to Pak Kasman.