Fragrant memories

The season of jasmine is here. For somebody who grew up in Madurai, the Mecca of jasmine, the memories associated with the flowers are far too many.  As I watch the first few buds shyly opening up and inhale the heady fragrance wafting through the garden, I am overcome by memories: some funny, some nice, some so old that I cannot believe they had registered in me!

Scary memory

One of my earliest memory with jasmine is a scary one.  It was one of those festival evenings with guests at home.  I was dressed in a silk lengha and had braided my hair with freshly strung jasmine flowers.  As the evening wore on and I suspect as the jasmine buds were opening up, somebody pointed out that there was huge wasp sitting inside one of those opening buds in my hair.  It was mayhem, with everyone shouting at me to do something and nobody venturing anywhere near me for fear of getting stung by the wasp.  While I vividly remember the shock and fear, I cannot recall what happened after that or how the wasp went away.  I assume it did so, because I should have remembered if it had stung me!

Weird memory

During my college years, I used to ride a two wheeler to go to my college.  On the way, there was this one boy who would wait promptly every day for me  on the road side with his bike.  He would then ride a short distance ahead of me in his bike.  I guess it was a sort of wooing he was trying in the typical filmy way. It used to anger me initially but I had learnt to ignore and treat it as a minor irritation, in that Pre #METOO era.

But there was this time towards the end of my course when he tried to strike conversation with me; there was a particularly harrowing week where he would ride alongside me in the bike and say that he wanted to see me wearing jasmine flowers the next day.

I used to love wearing flowers in my hair even to college.  And that season we were having beautiful jasmine buds being supplied to my house and my mother would string them for us to wear.    Suddenly I refused to wear them, when this boy's request came!  My mother was perplexed and then got angry with all those flowers being wasted after she had meticulously strung them.  I gave her some weird reasons ashamed of telling her the truth.  For quite some time after this, I avoided putting flowers in my hair, very regretfully but firmly.  And that  marked the end of my flower-flaunting days sadly.  Because, it so happened that just after this incident, I had to move out of the city to Delhi to pursue higher studies; then job in a different city happened followed by a bold action to cut my hair with no chance of putting flowers. 

Whenever I visited Madurai after that, I used to have this overwhelming desire to find that boy, give him a good shake and tell him that he was responsible for that abrupt end to my sweet flower flaunting days!

Shocking memory

Soon after this weird incident of me stopping wearing flowers, I landed up in Delhi for higher studies.   And was going through a cultural shock and a culinary shock.  I and a hostel mate found a good remedy for both by visiting the Malai mandir in RK Puram and dropping in at a distant relative's place close by for a simple south Indian meal. Which one was an excuse for the other one is anybody's guess.  During the first such trip, I was happy to see jasmine flowers (though no match to the one from Madurai) for sale in the temple, and promptly put them in my hair.  Ha, I thought, No boy to hold me back now.  I and my friend then rode the blue bus back to the hostel with the flowers in our hairs, and were greeted with some curious glances.  A little later, a north Indian girl ventured up to us and told us gently to avoid wearing flowers in Delhi especially in public places!  It took some time for both of us to understand and we were shocked as to how it could be interpreted in that blue bus in Delhi! Well that ensured that no more flowers for another year and a half!

Lingering memory 

Living in Madurai and in the outskirts meant we had abundant supply of fresh jasmine buds straight from the farmers' fields.  It used to a routine evening affair in most houses for ladies to sit in the front yard or verandah and string the flowers.  When the girls in our colony were young and going through phases of trying out one activity after another, there was this phase of learning to string the jasmine flowers.  The grand mothers and mothers would be sitting around, chatting and stringing them in the traditional way using the fibre from the banana stem.  It was a work of art and the hand movements were like an orchestra playing.  They would curl the fibre around the stem of the bud and go over it with an elegant knot and then move on to the next one;  the gap between the two buds was just enough to allow them to bloom fully but tight enough to not let the fibre be seen through.  The end result was stunning.  And no fabric thread or needle, just plain hand work with simple items easily available - rustic and rooted to the earth!  I suspect the stringing sisterhood remained as close as those jasmine buds in the string!  

After close to two decades since I stopped wearing the flowers in my hair, I am growing my hair now.  Who knows, I might end up stringing the jasmines from my garden and flaunt them one of these days.  And I am so looking forward to a new set of memories with these flowers, including being wooed!