Fragrance

 Aai loved the chapha or champak flower a lot. In our garden, we have four different varieties of this divine flower. She liked all, the pale yellow one with almost like a bud shape, the bulbous variety, the Green champak and the typical golden yellow variety.

Aai liked all of them, but she adored the Golden yellow and the truly rare Green variety. Champak is a Sanskrit word adopted by English. Sure, there is a scientific taxonomic term: 'magnolia/michelia champaka'.   I like the dialectal variants of the name much more. Champak is known as the 'yellow jade orchid tree' and the 'joy perfume tree'. I think, I like both these variations of the name, especially because they encapsulate why Aai loved the flower.

The Golden champak has a rich, luscious yellow colour with a faint ochre like-golden shade to it. The shape is unique, too. Aai liked the colour. Yellow anyways was her favourite colour. She loved its fragrance.  I had made her a garland of it when she returned from the Chardham Yatra. The whole day I was busy with my research and my journalism related activities. I had to hence surreptitiously make it on the train. The whole compartment was afresh with the fragrance. 

Yet again had I made it for her when she turned seventy five. There were exactly seventy five golden yellow champak flowers in that garland.Her grandsons, whom she loved above all,  made her wear it on the "Holi" Day, her tithi-wise birthday.The "Holi" that year thus became truly holy.

As she loved the flower, I always bought it, however off season it may be. The room , her pillow near which I used to keep the flower, would have the fragrance lingering on and on. Like her Love. Often, I used to get the champak veni, woven the traditional way, because she loved the flower. It used to rest at the feet of the Dnyaneshwar idol she truly liked because Raju gifted it to her when she topped the merit list of the Dnyaneshwari  course final examination.

She loved the Green variety hugely. She loved it because because this absolutely unique tree was planted by Papa. Incidentally, it is known as the"Pooja flower", and Aai used to be hugely happy when it could be part of her daily prayer. Known as "Balaji flower", named as it is after "Lord Venkyatesha, our family deity, a daily pooja with that flower from late January through June-July was special for her.

This particular variety, absolutely green, is difficult to see/locate easily, but once it blooms, it fills your very being with its special, unique fragrance. Exactly like the love of parents! Hence as a consolation token to my colleague who lost her mother to corona, I gave a few seeds of this variety, and they have started sprouting in her garden. Exactly like the ever blooming love of parents!

Pratima @if fragrance be the feel of love, bloom on!