During my visit to France in 2002, I noticed something that stayed with me far longer than the monuments and museums. The balconies. Not overflowing with pots and colours, not shouting for attention—just a single flowering plant, placed thoughtfully, almost like a signature. There was restraint, and in that restraint, elegance.
It made me reflect—how often do we confuse abundance with beauty?
In many places, balconies are crowded with plants, colours competing with each other, as if beauty can be multiplied by addition. But true beauty, I have always felt, lies in subtraction. It is much like a single-line sketch—no room for error, no excess strokes, yet it captures the essence more powerfully than an elaborate painting.
Simplicity is not poverty of expression; it is clarity of thought.
I have seen this principle at work in the most unexpected places. A good chef, in my view, is not the one who can produce fifty dishes, but the one who can make a simple dal taste divine with minimal ingredients. That requires understanding, balance, and restraint. Anyone can complicate; very few can simplify.
Similarly, a slice of bread, properly toasted and served with generous butter, can be more satisfying than a lavish spread. There is honesty in simplicity—nothing to hide behind.
Even beauty, in its purest form, does not demand decoration. A beautiful face does not require layers of paint. Nature itself is the greatest teacher of this truth. The ocean does not decorate itself; it simply exists in its vastness. The sky, when clear and blue, needs no embellishment.
I am reminded of my visits to Australia. I would often find myself staring at the sky—deep blue, endless, almost meditative. Last time when my grandson Shuddy visited us, he looked up and innocently remarked, “The sky is not blue here.” His observation, though simple, carried a quiet indictment.
Because I remember—during my childhood in Bengal in the 1950s, the sky was blue. We did not know we were living amidst beauty, because it was natural, effortless, and everywhere.
Today, we are trying to recreate beauty artificially, while losing its original source.
Henry David Thoreau had said, “Simplify, simplify.” It sounds easy, but in reality, it is perhaps the most difficult discipline. Our lives are constantly moving towards accumulation—more possessions, more commitments, more noise. But in that process, clarity gets lost.
Another thought that resonates deeply is by Leonardo da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” It takes maturity to remove the unnecessary. It takes wisdom to know what to retain.
“Simple living, high thinking” is a phrase we often repeat, but seldom practice. Simple living does not mean deprivation; it means freedom—from clutter, from excess, from the constant urge to impress. High thinking naturally follows, because the mind is no longer burdened.
In my own life, I have noticed that the moments of greatest contentment have been the simplest ones—reading a good book and losing track of time, a quiet cup of tea, a meaningful conversation, or even sitting silently observing nature.
Perhaps the French balcony with its single flower was not just an aesthetic choice. It was a philosophy.
A reminder that less is not less.
It is more—if only we have the eyes to see it.
1 comment:
Less is more eg one flower in a pot by S N Roy
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