OUR "NITHYA MALLI" IN FULL BLOOM !

OUR “NITHYA MALLI” IN FULL BLOOM

(A breezy essay by Subbaram Danda)

It was a pleasant Sunday morning in April.  Though the summer had, for all practical purposes, set in a fortnight ago in all its fury, the mornings were still enjoyable with soothing cool breeze wafting across caressing our bodies in soft massaging touches.

We – myself, wife Sampuranam, affectionately called Priya, and grand-daughter Divyashree – climbed up the steps to the terrace of our two-storey building for a lazy saunter.  We had hardly walked a few metres, when an incredible spectacle unfolded itself in front of us.  In full bloom was our “Nithya Malli” – a variety of jasmine!  We were pleasantly stunned.

We did not expect this to happen so soon.   Priya had told me a month back that from the ground floor backyard she could see some flowers here and there on the creeper, which was slowly making its way to the terrace hugging the ropes we had strategically placed.   I thought it would be some months before it could complete its journey and spread out.   And the fact was that we did not go to the terrace very often.

Gentle sway

The flowers were in numerous clusters in various stages of blossoming – some fully open, some ready to show themselves up totally any moment and some only in the bud format.   The white blossoms were playing hide and seek with green leaves swaying gently in the mild breeze.  They looked like stars glittering in the clear firmament in the night.

Some flowers had withered and fallen to the ground.  But most of them were intact ready to be plucked.  Priya warned us not to touch them, as the first flowers were to be offered to God.  She ran downstairs to fetch a plastic basket.   She came back and picked a handful, collected them in the basket and put them aside.

Intoxicating aroma

It was our turn to “play” with the flowers.  I smelled a few and the aroma was slightly intoxicating.   Though "Nithya Malli” scent was familiar to me, I was wondering in a crazy way whether the fragrance of the flowers grown at our own place and picked afresh with our own hands would not be somewhat special!!   It was not very different.  Divyashree was all excited.  She picked some flowers, tossed a couple of them away after smelling them and inserted others in her hairdo.

We counted the flowers and the buds.  They totalled more than 150.  What a bounty on the day of the very first pick by us!

Suddenly, I thought of taking a photo of the flower clusters to serve as a memento.  It was now my turn to run downstairs.  But the camera batteries had run down.  I searched for the recharger, found it and fixed the batteries in it for charging.

Street stalkers

As I strode back upstairs, my mind pondered over the pains Priya and I took to bring up the creeper to this stage.  We had purchased the sapling from a street vendor and planted it in the ground on the front side of the building.  But we realized later that when it blossomed its flowers would be gone, as they would be stealthily picked by people, who roamed around streets very early in the morning plucking whatever flowers they could lay their hands on. 

So we transplanted it on the rear side of the building, setting up props and tying ropes all the way to the open terrace so that the creeper could climb its way up.  But its growth was not as fast as we wanted!

We were envious of the “Nithya Malli” creeper grown by the people opposite our house.  It had moved up to the terrace on top of two floors, yielding a sumptuous harvest every day.  We watched with green eyes those people plucking flowers every morning and evening.

"Golden Ratio" in jasmines

Priya, who had seen “Nithya Malli” at her parents’ house, assured me that proper tending in the beginning was necessary but later on it would grow itself.  The best time for it to blossom in abundance was summer.  Even in winter it would give flowers but their structure would be a bit stunted.  That is the reason why they are called “Nithya Malli” – jasmines all round the year. 

Priya took special efforts to nurture our plant by watering it twice a day and periodically removing weeds.  Once she also purchased some red soil and manure for it.  

Finally, all these efforts paid off.  And our own “Nithya Malli” was at last in full bloom!  The next morning I picked up my camera and took a photo of the flower clusters -- a lovely sight to record. 

Meanwhile, my curiosity was at its peak.  In the background of what I had written in “The Glitter of the Golden Ratio,” I carefully counted the petals in a fully-grown flower.  Behold, they totalled eight – a number in the Fibonacci sequence.  What a delightful corroboration!         

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