PHOTOGRAPHY | NATURE | FLOWERS
A curious child and Jasmine flowers
Nine-year-old Malar was curious to see the Jasmine trees grow very tall. Flowers meant a lot to her, she ruminated about how to go up the tree and pluck the flowers. Could she?
Malar luxuriates in adorning flowers in her jet-black hair. She was besotted with flowers — yellow, red, or white, tulips, roses, or marigolds anything and everything to do with flowers piqued her. She had never seen flowering trees, her idea of flowers was limited to flowers she plucked from her balcony garden. She just saw those beautiful jasmine flowers high up there on trees, now she is enamoured with laying her hands on them.
We have two variants of Jasmine trees in our community. Indian cork tree (Millingtonia hotensis) which grows up to 25m in height and the other one is Night flowering jasmine (Nyctanthes arbor-tristis) which grows up to 10m in height. So plucking these flowers was out of the question for us. So I promised Malar to take her to the garden the next day morning and explore what can be done.
The next day we went for a stroll in the park early in the morning. As we strolled we could feel a slight chill in the air, winter is in the anvil. I and Malar proceeded towards the place where the jasmine trees were blooming. The path we were walking ended with a sharp 90-degree turn to the right. We couldn’t see what was on the path after the turn, but as we strolled we could feel the fragrance in the air. It was getting intoxicating. Malar was cackling with excitement with a wistful sparkle in her eyes for seeing and holding the jasmines. As we took the right turn, our stroll came to a halt. The path was laden with flowers — not dead or wilted flowers but fresh flowers. It looked like there was a shower of flowers.
My memory went back to my school days fav song Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses”, the Roses have become Jasmines now. Indian cork trees, blooms at the night and shed in the morning. Malar was hesitant to walk further. How can we walk on these beautiful flowers crushing them, she questioned. The first rays of the sun were now cracking up in the dawn and slowly morning walkers started trickling in. Her innocuous mind was not able to accept that anyone could walk on these flowers.
I suggested let’s collect whatever we can from the ground and take it home. Like the morning hen rummaging through the backyard, we started picking up flowers. Once we had a bagful we started moving ahead.
The path turned green and not far we could see green grass garnished with white and orange dots. We headed to probe the whites and oranges.
Closer inspection revealed they were the other variant of Jasmines — Night flowering jasmines. They have this peculiar orange stem and fragrance as stirring as the Indian jasmine and they too bloom in the night and shower in the morning. We couldn’t help but collect more of them in our bag.
My memory once again went back to my childhood days and started recollecting grandma’s stories about this flower. They are also called Parijatham in our local language. It is believed that the Parijatham tree was a tree in heaven and Lord Krishna brought it to earth. In our tradition when we offer flowers to the temple, the flowers have to be plucked from plants, but an exception is made only for Parijatham. Fallen Parijathams can be picked up from the ground and offered in temples.
Reaching home, Malar was ecstatic. She was profusely happy that she didn’t have to do much work to get these flowers and nature itself bestowed her the best of them as an easy picking. She then went ahead and decorated the flowers around the lamp and many other places in my house.
It was time for Malar to leave my place, bidding adieu she shared a small note with me —
Jasmines have fallen
Not withered nor wilted
Blooming high up
Wilfully they have come down
Like a morning shower
Intoxicating fragrance
Oozing out for long
Selfless Jasmines
Offering an easy picking
