The floral carpet
The Hindu
A few days later, the flowers were on their way out, and the delicately interconnected seeds began to appear.
I first met him under the freshwater mangrove tree on one of my early-morning walks in the neighbourhood. A tall, frail figure stooping to collect the red carpet of flowers on his puja pathram. We exchanged the usual pleasantries, and he recollected how he had planted and raised the tree. And how he had never met anything so bounteous in beautiful charity for his puja. Not much of a conversationalist, he resumed collecting flowers almost immediately. A few encounters later, Nagarajan, whom I started calling uncle, invited me into his garden to show saplings of the tree. He shared some of the seeds he collected and a few saplings too. Years passed. My work routines got busier and the morning walks dwindled. But one wondrous morning, on resuming my walk, I found the roadside beside the tree carpeted a brilliant scarlet, with hundreds of flowers. Nagarajan’s house was shut and barred. I learnt from a neighbour that his wife was sick and he was away with his son, in another city. With no one to collect them, the flowers were being swept each day into the rubbish heap.More Related News