Flowers decorate our gardens
Alleys, abandoned lands
On the ten glorious days starting with Atham
It’s the jewel on the courtyards of our homes
I remember the buzz in the mornings
To pluck the mist filled flowers
To create floral layouts of joy
Striving to create something different
Every day, with whatever flowers available
I’ve seen kids visiting homes
Collecting flowers with exuberance
Now , they get it from market
Preserved flowers at exorbitant prices
Grown and cared just for us somewhere else
Far away from our culture and our lives
This makes me wonder!
Where did we bury our flowering plants?
To stop it from blooming in our little spaces
It takes a few minutes to water
But, its more easy to buy colorful flowers
These aren’t our flowers which decorated our lives
There are more residential associations than residents itself
Yet nobody got time to raise flowers for the kids
When they got time to organize all kind of silly events
Acres of farmlands are laying barren
Yet nobody wish to grow flowers for ourselves
We have outsourced that right to our neighboring states
Youth have time to squeeze money from people on streets
In the name of non-existent arts associations for onam celebrations
Yeah, they don’t have time to raise silly flowers bearing our culture
People have time to queue up infront of liquor outlets
They have creativity to create layouts with empty bottles of liquor
But, raising flowers is waste of time, as it gives fragrance
So fresh and exotic than the much priced rums, brandies, beers and more
We create new limca records for floral arrangements every year
To show how much we care about our onam
An event of glits and glamour for flowers for media
But, I wish they could see use the colors and flowers of our lives
The big floral layouts on the street, sprouted by the active youth
It was part of our lives, now it’s on the wane
As salt filled , artificial colored layouts smiles at us
I wonder, even they have abandoned our flowers
When these tv channels shower our eyes with the floral extravaganza
Even they forgot our roots and our flowers
They can sell ads for showing prices of flowers
Just like, they do with any other sensational news
Government pays huge bills to organize events
To show the world our onam celebrations
But even they don’t realize we celebrate onam at the mercy of others
Our king is welcomed with dead flowers from afar
It speaks the language of another culture to him
What if he stops visiting us one day?
Disillusioned with his welcome!
Anybody care!
Sorry, we are busy, shopping flowers at trade fairs!
images: thanks to rightful owners!
