Parijat: A flower fit for the gods

This threatens to be a bit of a nostalgia-peppered piece. Can’t help feeling a trifle maudlin during the festival season. It is perhaps a hankering for moments lived in another lifetime with people who are either not in one’s life anymore or not alive anymore. Forgive me if I sound a wee bit soppy, but I just heard the news that one of my dearest artist friends — Yusuf Arrakal — passed away this morning (Tuesday) and I can’t help but remember the wonderful times we had with his charming and ebullient wife Sara at their interestingly designed home in Bengaluru. The idea is not to be a cry baby, but perhaps share parts of cultural traditions that one has gleaned living amongst people from different regions. Heck! Even as I write this, it already sounds like a walk through the done-to-death ‘Unity in Diversity’ theme! But I promise not to indulge myself too much!

What Navratri has meant to me over the years has changed, expanded, contracted, even become irrelevant in phases. It is in a way like the quest for a spiritual life that we all lilt towards and only the really fortunate are able to find their path. Let me begin with my earliest memories of Navratri. It meant that mother would sow “jaw” or millet on the first day in an earthen shallow trough. Even my usually non-ritualistic mother would light a ghee diya and sing a bhajan praising the Goddess Durga for nine days from a much-used tome that originally belonged to my maternal grandmother, who was a fierce Durga worshipper. I suspect it was my mother’s way of remembering Nani, rather than any very deep conviction in the ritual.

On the ninth day, there would be a feast with halwa, puri and chana and some coins for the young, pre-puberty girls who were perceived to be symbolic of the pure Goddess. Our interest (needless to say) was always in those tiny booties of coins that we managed to collect! I have a very vivid recollection of an instance when I collected maybe two rupees or so and, not knowing what to do with these great riches, asked mother. She looked at me and said, “Keep it in a katori, we will use it for your marriage.” By evening she had forgotten all about it but, of course, I remembered. I went up to her and said “Mujhe shaadi nahin karni hai (I don’t want to get married).” I must have been all of six or seven. Not understanding what I was getting at, she said “Accha, mat karna (Okay, don’t do it).” But my agenda was different. I wanted to eat ice-cream with that money and not use it for my wedding!

Of course, there were also trips to the Durga Puja pandals, mandatory every evening. The men and women dancing with the dhuni on the beats of the dhak was a huge favouirite. Oh, I miss all those wonderful days!

But one thing that is a personal highpoint in this season is the flowering of the harsingar, or the parijat. In my childhood, during my Durga Puja holidays, a cane basket in hand, I would assist my mother in gathering the fallen flowers from the ground. Later, we would sew them into a garland to be offered to the gods. I noticed that these were the only flowers that were picked from the ground; the others we plucked from trees. My mother explained that parijat has a special status as the gods’ favourite flower and so they didn’t mind giving it the loving name of harsingar, meaning the ornament of the gods.

According to Hindu mythology, the Nyctanthes arbor-tristis, commonly known as the night-flowering jasmine, first appeared as a result of samudra manthan, the churning of the milky ocean. Even the gods couldn’t resist themselves on seeing its ethereal beauty. Lord Krishna battled the King of Gods, Lord Indra, to win over the parijat (the Sanskrit name of the tree) and so his first wife, Satyabhama, demanded that the tree be planted in her backyard. The flowers of the tree, however, always fell on the adjacent backyard of Queen Rukmini, Krishna’s other wife and his favourite, which Satyabhama resented. This story speaks volumes about the skills of the clever Krishna who never failed to maintain peace between his two wives, both of whom wanted the Parijat for themselves.

My mother, however, told me a different version, one much closer to my heart. It talks about the princess Parijat who fell in love with Surya, the Sun God. Surya, however, had a condition before she could marry him — she should never turn away from him. Parijat agreed as she couldn’t even imagine turning away from her beloved. They married in autumn and never even realised when winter and spring flew by. During summer, when Surya’s power became immense, it became difficult for Parijat as even going near him would burn her.

One day at noon, Surya suddenly appeared at her door and Parijat flinched for a second. Becoming angry, Surya’s powers knew no bounds and Parijat wilted. Surya, on coming to his senses, realised his mistake and turned to the gods for help. The gods knew that Parijat had loved Surya with all her heart and so granted her another life as a tree. The sun now visits her during the night and the flowers are as fragrant as they are because they have been kissed by the sun. They, however, still can’t bear the rays of the sun during the day and so the tree sheds its flowers at dawn. All the Parijats to all of you this season!

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com