Book Review | The Viraraghavans of Kodaikanal and their zany roses

They sometimes stand tall at five-and-a-half metres and are older than humans. They come in every colour of the artist’s palette. Their scent flavours pretty confections and adds zest to our tastiest cocktails. But curiously, despite arriving from Persia and covering 54 per cent of the land area of Ecuador, it is an air of English refinement that they bring to our Indian gardens. Thanks to M.S. ‘Viru’ Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan, there now exist one hundred more varieties of the rose, the world’s most exquisite blossom. Roses in the Fire of Spring is both a tribute and documentation of the work of these two intrepid rosarians who have devoted their lives to creating hybrids and cultivars of this beautiful species that can prosper in our tropical conditions, now hotter due to climate change. For their abundant gifts, rose lovers, not only in India but the world over, are grateful to the Viraraghavans, as they are for their discoveries of several authentic Indian ‘heritage’ roses that the duo sought out in order to cross-breed plants with by scouring distant reaches of the Rajasthan Aravalis, the northeastern Himalayas and the Western Ghats.

From the narrative, Viru Viraraghavan appears as a large-hearted, imaginative man. He has a master’s degree in chemistry. Viru joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1959 and rose to director, and secretary, in the Andhra Pradesh agriculture and horticulture departments before seeking voluntary retirement in 1980 to follow his zany vision. The intellectual Girija has a master’s in history and taught primary school for some years. Both served as vice-presidents of the Indian Rose Federation and won IRF gold medals. For over thirty years, they were joint editors of the Indian Rose Annual.

In the course of their adventures, the husband-wife duo must have come up against no few obstacles. Some of these are described in the book with quiet humour. Such as the language problem they encountered when searching for the white R. clinophylla, a wild native species. The villager they were communicating with only ever understood the gulab as a pink-petalled rose and not before they gave a detailed description did he perk up and supply (“oh, you mean kuza?”) the local name and location (hedges around fields just above a lake) of the theretofore-elusive rose.  

The descriptions of various gardens and arboretums in Sikkim, England, Scotland, the United States, South Africa, France, Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand are a treat for the travel voyeur. Seasoned rose breeders are sure to recognise many a name among the celebrated ‘rose friends’ (David Austin, the ‘Tea Bags’, Rose Voelcker) who received and regaled the couple. From one of them, Girija learned to make guacamole. Viru received the World Rose Award of the World Federation of Rose Societies. In 2006, Viru and Girija were both conferred the prestigious Great Rosarians of the World Award instituted by the Huntington Gardens, San Marino, California. The two horticulturists have also experimented with rhododendrons.

What are some of the different rose varieties created by the Viraraghavans? Allegory of Spring (which is soft shell pink); Incense Indigo (a rich purple); Twilight Tryst (fuchsia); Magic East (magenta); Coffee Country (a warm brown); Ganges Nymph (pink); Kindly Light (white with pink touches); Ahimsa (yellow; thornless); Out of India (brilliant red); Priyatama (pink and white); Sir George Watt (white and yellow); Sir Henry Collett (cream); Frank Kingdon-Ward (yellow-stained pink); Leschenault de la Tour (pristine white); and the audience favourite, the E.K. Janaki Ammal (a pink- and yellow-tinged saffron) rose named in remembrance of the saris worn by the 1897-born Indian scientist who became the first woman in the US to earn a PhD in botany and was picked by Pandit Nehru to head the Botanical Survey of India after Independence. It is the rose featured on the cover of the book, so tastefully illustrated and designed, respectively, by Hemlata Pradhan and K.K. Kannan. The Janaki Ammal rose continues to bloom today in the gardens of all the institutions the pioneer worked in, the John Innes Institute, the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden in Wisley, in Kew and other places around the world.

The Viraraghavans’ own garden is located in the hill town, Kodaikanal, where they are also founding members of the Palni Hills Conservation Council which does its best to safeguard the surrounding environment.

The Viraraghavans lost their First Offering, a scarlet rose with orange shades. We lost ours, too, an accidental hybrid that my father found in our garden one morning in 1988 and named after my kid sister (“Doll’s Yellow; no, that doesn’t sound right, let it be La Dolla”). My father had green fingers. We had a garden of 68 varieties of, mostly commercial, roses. It was to be our ‘heirloom rose’. Unfortunately our overzealous help uprooted the plant while weeding. A doctor by profession, ‘Baba’ gave up gardening not long after this incident. Reticent and austere, he might have well been angered by this odd mention, but how he would have admired this book!

Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World & Other Garden Adventures

By M.S. Viru Viraraghavan, Girija Viraraghavan

Running Head, 2023

pp. 444, Rs.2,499