Recently, I came across a humourous line: “While one is sleeping, if flowers are strewn below, it is one’s first night; if flowers are above, then it is one’s last night.” Well, jokes apart, flowers are a fabulous gift of nature to us. I wonder, what would sprawling night skies be like, shorn of galaxies of sparkling stars? Or, like, cold nights without cosy and cuddly blankets? Or scalding summers, sans those sporadic, soothing zephyrs? What would Mother Nature be like without magnificent clusters of myriad kinds of flowers?
Several times, I have stood stupefied, seeing those stunning flowering trees in Lalbagh, which perennially look like bedecked ‘Christmas trees’ made gorgeous naturally, often even more beautiful than the glittering fairy lights, gold-hued festoons, glossy-surfaced trinkets, and gilded circular balls. Even the wilted flowers, which have waltzed on the wet ground after windy drizzles, look winsome. In fact, one can behold bedazzling flower blankets encircling the boles of big trees. Like a deep-purple blanket all around a jacaranda tree, tangy reddish-orange under a resplendent Gulmohar, and canary-yellow under a golden-shower tree.
Little wonder then that even lacklustre spaces, either in living rooms or large offices, can be made lovely by little posies of flowers, like luminescent-white roses, lilies, etc. From the sitting space of my balcony, I keep sighting a solitary periwinkle flower on a slender stem, springing from a small chink, on the sodden surface of the wall of my neighbour. The mere sight of it magically transforms my mood, ushering in joy and mirth within me. Now I know why the well-heeled folks are willing to fritter away wads of currencies, on wondrous floral decorations, during weddings, etc.
Not only at megafestivals, but even at home, the flowers can fantastically jazz up the interiors. The floral rangolis with firecrackers and white jasmine, interspersed with green basil leaves, do make for lovely tri-colour creations. Be it adorning portraits of gods or accessorising hairdos of females, flowers aggrandize the beauty in both! (Remember floral festoons or garlands made of oleander, marigold, or chrysanthemum in the sanctum sanctorum of temples? Or, the way gossamer-textured bougainvillaea blooms, ginger up the grandeur near the temple gates)?
Even the teensy alpine flowers, spotted amidst spiky wild bushes around the serrated-edged hillocks, simply make for splendid spectacle. No wonder women are compared with flowers. Just as each flower is captivating in its own way, each woman, too, is charismatic in her own charming manner!