Fragrance that lingers!

Every home as some memory attached to plants and flowers! We had a 'Hibiscus' plant that my mom had planted when she moved into our house first day after my parents had got married in 1976. So that plant was an quintessentially a 'senior' in my house, much earlier than even me and sis were born. Mom used to water it carefully, prune it and when a flower bloomed, she would offer it to Lord. Ganesh. Ganpati is usually offered red colored flowers and it is said that hibiscus (jaswand) in marathi is his favourite flower:) She would use the leaves to make make some oil mixture which was supposed to make your hair even darker! Then we had this flower 'Sayli' that was pink in color. The meaning of 'sayli' is 'delicate' Truly, the flower was so pretty that one would never want to remove it from the plant. We also had some 'button roses' planted. But, it was too hectic to take care of it. Didi and mom used to regularly add fertilizers but they since we lived on the ground floor, probably they did not get exposed to whole lot of sunlight. When one plant died, mom never planted any other rose plants. My dad used to always bring flowers for mom whenever he came from work. He would get three 'gajras' for my mom, sis and myself. They both loved wearing those flowers. I would somehow not like it, coz I always wore skirts or frocks (of corz when I was a kid) and wearing a gajra on skirt..was errr..too 'vernacular' and I still think so:) They looked gorgeous on salwar kurtas and sarees!! I would never understand what was the need for him to get it like everyday. After all after the fragrance goes off, its waste! [So what I thought]. But then as I grew up I realized that mom would in fact wait eagerly to see which flower my dad had bought for her [he always got white flowers: Mogra, Chameli, Juhi ] Although, I agree I love the fragrance of these flowers and I bet these flowers are much more romantic than a boquet full of roses! I remember, whenever we went to Dadar ( a town in Mumbai), she bought packets of these 'white flowers' from the huge 'Phool market'. She used to even make 'gajras' and distribute it to her friends and building walas:) Weaving those was indeed nice, so what I thought. So I learned to weave it too. And even now, I have not forgotten it. Wonder what it is about flowers, which has a 'feel-good'factor associated with it. So why was I tempted to write about this! Yesterday, I was walking across the street when I saw thic 'cute chinese couple' walking hand in hand. The girl stopped and took a look at a small white flower growing on a plant. Of course, I did not understand what they both said. But, the next instant, the guy took one tiny flower from the tree and put it on her EARS. Of course coz her hair was straight wth no clips or bands to hold her hair;) But the expression on the girl's face was PRICELESS!! As said by Albert Schweitze, " In the hope of reaching the moonmen fail to see the flowersthat blossom at their feet" How long has it been that you have 'smelled' the roses?:)