#Scurf127: Dabs and Marigolds on a Delhi noon
On the flower that is all too ubiquitous in India and therefore, calls for strong commemoration and a gentle curiosity
Delhi’s weather has been unbearable this past week. Even though I spent most of it indoors, confined to my desk, at it on my keyboard, working the works, the weather has been tormenting, taunting and holding be back from the outsides. It’s been sticky, sweaty, prickly. Humidity running its peak course. The heat mingled with the humidity is soul crushing. But amid the rain, heat and humidity, what has remained is a steady carousel of ever changing smells.
For lunch this afternoon I could smell marigolds and bel patra in the restaurant. We were at a south Indian joint and the smell of delicious Andhra food mixed with that of the rains outside, perfumed the space. But the scent that stood out for my senses was the overpowering whiff of marigolds hanging loosely with bel patras at the restaurant’s entrance.
Now fragrances of flower are generally fruity and sweet, sometimes even musky, making them fall in the category that I strictly avoid. But marigolds hold a special place in my heart, mind and even olfactory receptors. Growing up in our household in Kanpur marigolds were around on most occasions. For pujas (big and small), celebrations, birthday rituals, marriage ceremonies, anniversary celebrations — marigolds with leaves from mango trees and bel patras formed the main part of the decor.
Then their heady musky smell meant a crowded house, busy parents, lots of noisy aunts and aloof uncles, being around clamouring cousins and having a ball of a time. I was always playing with the genda phools, throwing petals, plucking at the bud, eating up the flower, using it for runs of spud. The flower was soft, embracing and easily lending itself to various uses. From the puja pandals, to the little Hindu gods and goddesses shrine, to decorating the Tulsi plant pot, the marigold, urf genda phool, was all over.
The flower was recently also in the eye of twitter ire when a white historian tweeted about the marigold’s not so Indian history.
Come to think of it, the marigold’s heady fragrance is musky, with thick notes of wet hay, even straw. Subconsciously, therefore, the flower came to be associate in my mind’s eye with silage, forage and ripening. On all these occasions my father would drive to the phool mandi in the early hours of the morning to purchase the flower by kilos, bringing home baskets of blooms unencumbered. They would then be the responsibility of us kids, women and house helps.
With thick, long and pointed needles and a strong variety of thread we would then sit in circles in the aangan, weaving garlands out of the flowers. Some would be for the idols of gods and goddesses, some for the humans participating in the puja, or ritual, and the rest of the other plants in the house. I remember making garlands in various sizes, as instructed by mom.
Eating the flowers would be an activity performed in the hiding because of the fear of retribution from the elders. We kids would take turns eating flowers and makhanas, both considered auspicious for Hindu celebrations.
Swimming knee deep in the waters of these memories, I also remembered how some of my favourite films have used marigolds. Monsoon Wedding’s flower ingesting Vijay Raaz shines back to the mind. Raaz’s genda phool eating character emphasises on the beauty in the everyday, from the love of his life to the everyday nature of this very flower. In eating these flowers by the mouthfulls Raaz owns the very spirit of the film — of being fully, deeply present in the now and the mundane, that nothing escapes you.
Various hindi songs with oodles of genda phool love don’t escape my attention. But I will go on long about them maybe some other time. Worth mentioning are Aaj Mausam’s reverb edition from Monsoon Wedding. The gently spurring, folksy eponymous ARR number from Delhi 6 is unmissable in its hint of nostalgia too. The excessively morose version of Kal Ho Naa Ho’s title track shows (what to me look like) genda phool’s in the living room enmeshed with fairy lights.
It is almost as if in these songs the genda phool, even as a background decoration, acts as a character. In that it seems to be setting the mood for these characters. Be it then love, heartache, or longing — the flower takes the shape of the vibes of the place.
Studio Ghibli’s Only Yesterday takes forward the studio’s obsession with nature, making the marigold a leitmotif. As characters wax poetic about benefits of organic farming and living away from urban din, there exists a sense of meditative calm around Taeko (the Tokyo protagonist) who’s shifts back to village life.
The colour of marigolds in these films works to infuse the seemingly quotidian into occasions of reflection and recollection. Only Yesterday shows these intense, deeply ecstatic reveries where Taeko takes us back to her childhood as an 11-year-old girl, jumping swiftly back to her present, bittersweet life, in which there might be a small sense of dissatisfaction soon to be covered by an imminent romance and change of place.
There is a depth in the scenes around these flowers. The farmers are ruminative, almost worshiping towards their produce. In that I also put a finger on the frankness with which topics like loneliness, puberty, and yearning are touched upon. The flowers then become an active ruse for Taeko to mesh her childhood with adulthood.
Writing about smells, it’s important to note that another woody, important smell as perforated the ambience of my house today. My brother is visiting me for the first time since I moved out of my parents’ house in 2008. It’s been a long gap of 14 years where I’ve lived in seven cities across two continents, and somehow our schedules and moods couldn’t ever converge. But this time as the moments unfold, carrying inside them other more precious moments, I feel a tingling.
Upon his arrival this morning, I could immediately, even unwittingly, sense his aroma. It was nothing too flowery, vanilla or obtrusive but woody, with notes of mint. As our day unraveled I could even sense dabs of green and chypre. As he unpacked his luggage, a whole mass of scents coalesced. There was a blend of oak, too, somewhere there. Later on I would realise how most of this was as a result of him traveling from a heavily inundated monsoon area. But most of all, the smell he most strongly exuded was that of gentleness, a softness and of home, of my mother. It brought a sweetness back to my day. As if mom was around too.
As I write this, a Jasmine candle burns tepidly on my desk. Outside my window it looks all green and swathed in fresh rains, but inside its marigolds, brother, jasmine and notes of home.
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