GROW YOUR OWN FLOWERS AGAIN: BRING BACK FRAGRANCE, MEMORY, AND MEANING
- Madhukar Dama
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
INTRODUCTION: WHEN HOMES SMELLED HUMAN
There was a time when every Indian home woke up with the scent of fresh flowers.
Not from a bottle.
Not from a spray.
But from the garden. The courtyard. The roadside bush. The backyard. Even the roadside pot.
Women and girls strung jasmine, wore kanakambara, picked hibiscus for Pooja, and placed a handful of petals in front of the deity.
The house didn’t just look clean — it smelled alive.
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FLOWERS WERE NOT LUXURY — THEY WERE LIVING CULTURE
Girls wore gajras as naturally as they wore anklets.
Boys woke early to help grandmothers pick flowers.
Every home had a corner with 2–3 flowering plants.
Every child knew the names of the plants they picked from.
Every ritual began with touching a flower, not tapping a phone.
The aroma was not decoration.
It was identity, softness, grounding, and connection.
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THE LOSS: HOW PHENYLE REPLACED THE FRAGRANCE OF LIFE
Today, that sacred, living aroma has been replaced by:
Phenyle in the bathroom
Harpic in the toilet
Aerosol sprays in the living room
Plastic room fresheners in prayer corners
You don’t walk into a home now —
You walk into a chemical cloud.
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THE LIE OF HYGIENE
We were told these chemical scents mean cleanliness.
But they bring nothing but sterile emptiness, hormone disruption, allergies, and headaches.
The earthy innocence of a marigold
was replaced by a factory-made lie.
Nobody touches a synthetic lemon leaf and feels devotion.
Nobody remembers their mother’s hug smelling of Dettol.
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GROW YOUR OWN FLOWERS AGAIN: IT'S EASY, CHEAP, AND REAL
You don’t need a garden.
You don’t need money.
You don’t need “time.”
You just need the will to restore your senses.
A windowsill is enough to grow jasmine or tulsi.
A tiny pot can hold marigold, rose, or chrysanthemum.
Even a plastic bottle cut in half can hold soil and a seed.
A balcony or rooftop can hold 5–6 flowering plants with daily joy.
You don’t need fertilizer — just compost from your kitchen.
Water once a day. Talk to them. Watch them bloom.
It is not gardening.
It is reclaiming your mornings.
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FLOWERS ARE A DAILY PRAYER
They don’t just decorate your hair or deity.
They remind you that:
You touched soil.
You grew something without chemicals.
You smelled something not made in a lab.
You’re still human.
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CONCLUSION: RETURN TO THE REAL FRAGRANCE
Enough of buying fake scents in plastic cans.
Enough of importing roses wrapped in plastic.
Enough of waking up to the smell of bleach and toilet cleaner.
Grow your own flowers again.
Place one on your table.
Put one in your daughter’s braid.
Drop one into your tea.
Offer one to the rising sun.
It doesn’t take space.
It doesn’t take effort.
It only takes willingness to feel alive again.
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THE FLOWERS THAT HELD THE WORLD TOGETHER
A Charles Bukowski–styled ode to petals, perfumes, and forgotten poetry
The first lover didn’t say “I love you.”
He just plucked a flower
and placed it in her hair.
She understood.
She bloomed.
And a thousand years of perfumes
began in that moment.
They weren’t just petals.
They were messengers.
Yellow for friendship.
Red for blood-kissed longing.
White for peace between mad men.
Orange for the sun inside you.
Purple for the royalty that never needed a crown.
We ate them.
Yes. Ate.
Jasmine in rice.
Rose in syrup.
Banana flower curry in grandmothers’ backyards.
Drumstick blossoms tossed with firewood salt.
Not just food.
A floral rebellion on the tongue.
We wore them.
Not like makeup.
Not like brand labels.
But like breathing.
Mogra wrapped around braids,
gajras swaying with footsteps.
Each petal, a love letter to the sky.
Each woman, a moving shrine of beauty.
We crushed them.
Not out of anger.
But to pull out
the memory of monsoon in one drop.
Kasturi for the divine.
Sandal for the silence.
Vetiver for the cracked feet of farmers.
Tulsi, not just scent—medicine that smiled.
We prayed with them.
Not because gods demanded it,
but because only flowers knew
how to bow
without losing fragrance.
They touched feet, sat on altars,
floated in copper plates,
offered not as bribes,
but as the softest surrender.
We mourned with them.
Marigolds around the dead
because no man should burn
without a companion
who knows how to die beautiful.
Frangipanis on graves.
Because even endings deserve a touch of poetry.
We healed with them.
Chamomile for the mind.
Calendula for wounds.
Hibiscus for hair.
The doctors didn’t come from cities.
They bloomed in gardens
long before medicine tasted like metal.
We decorated time with them.
Festivals made of petals.
Onam rangolis breathing colour into courtyards.
Pongal turmeric stalks
tied at the door like laughter.
Weddings drunk on roses,
marriages bound by garlands,
not paper, not signatures—
but the scent of forever.
We told the time by them.
Parijat only opens before dawn.
Night queen after sunset.
Time didn’t tick.
It bloomed.
We bathed in them.
Not in hotels.
But in open wells,
flower water poured by sisters,
by mothers,
by love.
Water held memory.
Flowers gave it language.
We became them.
The shy child, a touch-me-not.
The silent girl, a white lily.
The fierce woman, hibiscus red.
The old grandfather, marigold maroon,
grumbling with fragrance even in decay.
But now—
Phenyle in the corners.
Synthetic petals on plastic gods.
Aroma sprays choking jasmine’s throat.
Dettol instead of tulsi.
You wash your sins
with chemicals
when flowers were always
God’s own forgiveness.
Grow your own flowers again.
In a tin can.
In a broken bucket.
On a rusted grill.
Let one rose rise
from your kitchen window
like a revolution.
Because flowers—
they never asked for praise.
They only asked for space.
A little sun.
A little care.
And in return,
they made the entire world
smell like
hope.
