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Triloki Das Khandelwal condemns the use of flowers for displaying wealth However, over the past few years certain affluent people have started using flowers as a tool to exhibit their social status. In the process, they don’t mind wasting and abusing flowers, especially when using these for decoration during social events and gatherings. All sorts of flowers, local as well as foreign, are heaped up by the rich to show that they can afford to waste this beauty of nature. Tonnes of flowers are wasted every year for the decoration of marriage pandals. These flowers, which are usually hung on the gates of marriage pandals or spread on floor, are trampled by members of the marriage party. The next morning, these flowers are dumped in dustbins and safai karamcharies throw these out, along with the squalor and dirt of the town. Presenting huge bouquets or spreading flowers on the floor to welcome someone is like insulting nature. This ignorance or brazenness with which flowers are wasted can be called a denudation of nature’s beauty. William Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’ tells how the poet was enamoured by the beauty of daffodils while walking through the hills. Even after many years, the sight of those daffodils would flash in his inward eye and gave him supreme bliss. A poem by Siya Ram Sharan Gupta explained the plight of an untouchable, who wanted to bring a ‘flower as prasad’ from a temple. European countries like Holland, Belgium and Denmark have flower farms. Their climatic condition is conducive for the farming of tulips, roses and honeybees. Planeloads of these flowers are imported to America and in other continents where these flowers cannot be grown because of snow or cold. In western countries, only one flower is given as a token of affection on birthdays or anniversaries, which is a civilised way of respecting the person concerned as well as nature. However, in our country the sense of beauty is not appreciated and, therefore, the affluent dump their wealth in the name of costly flower decorations. One flower can respect the visitor, beloved or the guest but having truckloads of these is neither respect nor sociality. It is unfortunate that flower trade is growing in a country where people are yet to learn to appreciate its beauty. |
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A flower is beauty epitomised. While flowers are often used by people to greet one another, the devout use these in temples to pay obeisance to gods and deities. Notwithstanding varied ideologies and styles of life, this ‘beautiful and tender creation of nature’ reminds human beings to be kind and loveable.