Gardening is not a new passion for this political veteran. In the 1990s, when a leading newspaper asked him what he would have done if had not become a politician, he answered without a moment’s hesitation: a mali (gardener). What is amazing is that he pursued this enduring romance with nature throughout his exceptionally demanding and successful political career. One proof of this is that, although he occupied posts that entitled him to much bigger government houses, he refused to shift, in order to remain loyal to his garden in South Avenue Lane.

Where he lives now can best be described as a lawn with a house attached. The house itself is modest; when it was allotted to Ghulam Nabi in 1999 an additional secretary in the government was its earlier occupant. The large lawn was then literally a jungle with not even a boundary wall. Painstakingly, and over several years, Ghulam Nabi converted it into his personal Shalimar Bagh. Since then, he was minister of health, parliamentary affairs, civil aviation, and urban development, where he could pick almost any bungalow of his choice on the most prized boulevards of New Delhi. But he refused to move, and did not do so even as LoP in the Rajya Sabha from 2014 to 2022, for how could he betray the garden that had given him so much joy?

For many, such an attraction could be called irrational. But Ghulam Nabi’s love for gardening began at the age of three, when he would hold the corner of his grandmother (dadi)’s phirhan, and accompany her after the snow had receded, to plant vegetables and flowers in their small patch of land in a village in Jammu. This childhood love continued through college, when he converted his college lawns in Jammu into a garden. It was vividly in evidence too in the homes at Rajaji Marg and Akbar Road, his residences before 1999, where at his Eid and Diwali get togethers, leaders across the political spectrum would congregate.

Ghulam Nabi married Shameem, a gifted and trained singer, who became the youngest music lecturer in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) at the age of 22. As we sat down to tea, Shameem and her charming daughter Sofia, were exceptionally warm hosts. The Azad hospitality is legendary, and that evening the shami kebabs were to die for. Incidentally, Shameem received the Padma Shri for music in 2005, while Ghulam Nabi got the Padma Bhushan only in 2022, and that too when the BJP was in power.

In September 2022, Ghulam Nabi resigned from the Congress, to form his own party, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party. It did not fare well in the elections and is more or less dormant today. For most politicians, when political careers go into temporary abeyance, and there is no other hobby or vocation, public life can be exceptionally lonely. Fortunately, this has not happened with Ghulam Nabi. Since like all former chief ministers of J&K, he is entitled to Z-plus security, he could even after ceasing to be an MP, retain his house on South Avenue Lane. And this gives him the space and time to indulge his first love, gardening, a source of both solace and contentment.

In the corner of the garden is a grand semal (silk cotton) tree, which was still surprisingly bare. Ghulam Nabi said it blooms late. Whether in politics, or in nature, there is always perhaps the best yet to come.

Pavan K Varma is author, diplomat, and former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). The views expressed are personal