...not an adventure really, but something of an adventure, if a person doesn't know what he / she is doing.
It has been a long long time since I wrote in my blog, around a month or so since I am visiting India right now. And once I got here, I got super busy, housework, visiting friends, visiting relatives, functions and the like. Currently I am in Mangalore. Its a bit of a relaxed atmosphere here and I am enjoying the free time. Phew !! This is going to be a long long post...
I guess only people who know Konkani will have understood the title of my post. It means - tying flowers into a garland shaped thing. Well, I am glad to say I am pretty good at it. So many people of our generation do not know how to tie flowers. They would rather use a needle and thread and sew through the flowers, which will look good - but thats not the traditional way of doing it. And this method looks so much more prettier.
There are a bunch of flowering plants in my parents' garden. My dad is a big fan of gardening and he takes care of and tends to so many flowering plants. Every morning, he picks flowers that have bloomed for pooja at the house. Apparently priests from nearby temples and other neighbors come to our house asking for flowers to keep in their God's abode.
Anyway, there is a type of jasmine called "Jaai Mogare" (in konkani) or "Jaaji Mallige" (in Kannada). Its a beautiful white flower like the other jasmine species, but has these pinkish streaks on the petals making it all the more prettier. These jasmine flowers are also thin and long unlike their more famous Mysore jasmine counterparts. They also have a very sweet smell which is not as overpowering as the Mysore jasmine flowers. Heres a pic of a few Jaai jasmine flowers from our garden.
I remember when I first learnt to tie flowers together. My grandparents were living in Kavoor at the time. Kavoor is a small town near Suratkal / Mangalore, more nearer to Suratkal than to Mangalore. We used to visit them for holidays. At one of these times, my grandpa taught us how to tie flowers. Yes, my grandpa (my mom's dad). It was he who taught us all grandchildren (atleast me and my sister) how to tie flowers, how to ride a cycle, how to ride a moped etc., Its surprising isnt it ?
Anyways, if he had given us flowers for the first try, we would probably have heaps of torn flowers, because we need to have proper tension while tying the flowers. The stems of flowers are very very delicate and if we pull the thread a little bit tighter, they cut through the stems and the flowers are not reusable. So he gave us mango leaves for our first try and a roll of thread and showed us the procedure. Mango leaves are so rough. At times, we pulled the thread so hard, that we cut through even the thickest of the leaves... LOL. Well, practice makes man perfect. He would not let us touch a single flower, until we got the leaves right.
The next step was withered flowers / flowers which are slightly rotten (a single rotten petal and the sort), which wont be used in a fresh garland made for God. We had to get those right. Once we got through this step, we were allowed to tie a few good flowers. We could remove them from the garland just by pulling the flower slowly and then retie them. We had to do this until we got it all right :) / until the flowers were so weather-beaten that they could not be reused again. Anyways, the result of all that hard work is what we have now !! A superb beautiful garland.
Its funny what all man has developed for his needs. Tying flowers to keep them together is one such thing. Moreover it increases the beauty of the flowers (lots of colorful flowers can be tied into 1 colorful garland). And its a lot less messier when the flowers dry up and the place needs to be cleaned / the flowers need to be thrown away. Women can take a piece of the garland and place it in their hair (its a tradition to do this in India) instead of a few separate flowers, which cannot be pinned into the hair on their own. Whatever is the necessity, the solution to all that is Gantilele phool (tied flowers).
It has been a long long time since I wrote in my blog, around a month or so since I am visiting India right now. And once I got here, I got super busy, housework, visiting friends, visiting relatives, functions and the like. Currently I am in Mangalore. Its a bit of a relaxed atmosphere here and I am enjoying the free time. Phew !! This is going to be a long long post...
I guess only people who know Konkani will have understood the title of my post. It means - tying flowers into a garland shaped thing. Well, I am glad to say I am pretty good at it. So many people of our generation do not know how to tie flowers. They would rather use a needle and thread and sew through the flowers, which will look good - but thats not the traditional way of doing it. And this method looks so much more prettier.
There are a bunch of flowering plants in my parents' garden. My dad is a big fan of gardening and he takes care of and tends to so many flowering plants. Every morning, he picks flowers that have bloomed for pooja at the house. Apparently priests from nearby temples and other neighbors come to our house asking for flowers to keep in their God's abode.
Anyway, there is a type of jasmine called "Jaai Mogare" (in konkani) or "Jaaji Mallige" (in Kannada). Its a beautiful white flower like the other jasmine species, but has these pinkish streaks on the petals making it all the more prettier. These jasmine flowers are also thin and long unlike their more famous Mysore jasmine counterparts. They also have a very sweet smell which is not as overpowering as the Mysore jasmine flowers. Heres a pic of a few Jaai jasmine flowers from our garden.
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| Starting the garland |
Anyways, if he had given us flowers for the first try, we would probably have heaps of torn flowers, because we need to have proper tension while tying the flowers. The stems of flowers are very very delicate and if we pull the thread a little bit tighter, they cut through the stems and the flowers are not reusable. So he gave us mango leaves for our first try and a roll of thread and showed us the procedure. Mango leaves are so rough. At times, we pulled the thread so hard, that we cut through even the thickest of the leaves... LOL. Well, practice makes man perfect. He would not let us touch a single flower, until we got the leaves right.
The next step was withered flowers / flowers which are slightly rotten (a single rotten petal and the sort), which wont be used in a fresh garland made for God. We had to get those right. Once we got through this step, we were allowed to tie a few good flowers. We could remove them from the garland just by pulling the flower slowly and then retie them. We had to do this until we got it all right :) / until the flowers were so weather-beaten that they could not be reused again. Anyways, the result of all that hard work is what we have now !! A superb beautiful garland.
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| Completed garland |
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| Looks like another flower in itself. Beautiful isnt it ? |
