Wearing flowers

When we were in school, every day we used to wear fresh flowers in our plaits whenever available. We used to hear that some schools did not allow girls to wear flowers as the jasmine and other flowers invariably got loosened from the strings and dropped on the school floor. The trash was an ugly sight no doubt and we could understand that rule. But we used to pity those girls. Wearing fresh flowers uplifted our mood and brought the great outdoors inside the classrooms in which we were cooped up.

Some girls had gardens around their houses and used to wear single roses. Or even twin jasmine flowers or 'kanakambaram' straight from the bush, with a green leaf to provide volume and contrast colour to the arrangement perched on one side of the head, usually just above an ear. Other girls (like me!) who had to buy from the vendors used to burn with envy on seeing the different and unique colours a home grown variety yielded. The common kankambaram was a boring mild orange in colour but these girls wore dark red or pleasant yellow kanakambaram strings.

Some girls wore hibiscus flowers. Not the common red five petalled ones but the 'adukku'(Layered) sembaruthi flowers in every hue of red, yellow, pink and white. Of course, the mothers would yell at us admonishing us not to wear any and every flower we found on our way to the school. It would encourage the infestation of head lice (according to the old wives' tales)! But we were so crazy after flowers that we never heeded their words and the moment we disappeared round the corner, we would pluck the hibiscus or 'arali' flowers dangling outside the compound walls of our neighbours!

Now I know why South Indian ladies (of my generation only- already girls of younger generations in the big cities have got rid of long hair and wearing flowers!) visiting other places manage to pluck a flower or two (theirs or others', it doesn't seem to matter to them) and wear it just above their ears. I grew out of this habit years ago when we moved to a North Indian city.Wearing flowers was not a daily habit as it was down South. Women wore flowers only when attending marriages or some such formal functions and festivals.