I have loved my name for as long as I can remember! Kusum, meaning ‘flower’ in the Sanskrit language. I am grateful to my parents for choosing this name. Flowers are such delightful creations in nature. Colourful, fragrant, and just like all things in life, transient. They give joy and spread smiles when they bloom in all their glory. I may not be able to say the same about myself though. I may have brought joy to some people in my life, but not all (again, like all imperfect human beings). Accepting that one is unlikable is hard, but necessary. Nevertheless, coming to end-of-year reflections-2024 has gone by in a whizz too. My dear friend Atasi explained that our perception of time changes as we grow older. As adults, we are not learning many ‘new’ things, we are mostly repeating what we already know, so the brain perceives time as having passed faster than when we were kids, when every day, there was a discovery. This makes sense, doesn’t it?
Another year has gone by, without a single blog entry on my blog website- the winding road. I wrote this piece at the beginning of December 2024, but could only make time to post and share it a few minutes before the clock strikes midnight today. In 2024, I wrote several other things though, including blogs for the non-profit organization I now work in Mangal Pratap StreeArogya Kendra; research proposals, featured articles on topics of public health importance, and so on. Somehow, in the long list of tasks that life requires me to do, or rather I require myself to do, as a mother, a working woman, a poet, a doctor, a wife, a daughter, and all the other roles I take on; this blog featured down below. However, I decided to make time for this entry, which had taken shape in my mind long ago but is finally becoming a digital reality blog article about my name’s meaning- FLOWERS.
My earliest memory of a favourite flower was of ‘Champak’ (Sampige Hua in Kannada). The tree that bore these flowers grew in front of my paternal grandparents’ home in Rajajinagar, Bengaluru. They say fragrances can get imprinted in our memory too. And this flower’s heady fragrance, I do not think I can ever forget. I remember my grandparents offering these flowers to god’s altar at home in their daily prayer (Pooja) rituals. Another memory is trying to learn how to tie jasmine flowers (mallige hua in Kannada) from my maternal grandmother and failing miserably. She would weave magic and curate the most beautiful jasmine garlands, which I would then insist I wear in my short hair.
I have somehow visited many floral gardens with family, cousins, and friends- Lalbagh in Bengaluru, Ooty Garden, Rose Garden in Chandigarh, Munnar Botanical Garden, and so on. An absolute visual treat was the Keukenhof Tulip Garden near Amsterdam, Netherlands. Of late in rural Solapur, and even when we stayed in Bijapur (when I was 8 years old), the sunflower fields have been and still are a visual treat. All of these are human-facilitated floral beauties. However, Humans cannot beat nature’s magic. The three places I saw flowers growing in the ‘wild’ had a different charm altogether.
- Kaas Pathar, Satara, Maharashtra: While Rahul (my husband) and I stayed in Mumbai, I sought weekend getaways online. That is when I found this gem. Kaas is a plateau, located 25 km west of Satara in Maharashtra. After a pit-stop, at Panchagani (a hill station in the region), we used public transport to reach this UNESCO World Heritage site. A bus, and a shared rikshaw ride later, we found ourselves amidst thousands of tiny blooms, that seemed to stretch in front of our eyes as a large natural plush pink carpet. The area was clean and had designated walking paths so irrational tourists did not step on the blooms. The plateau ended as a cliff with excellent views on two sides. Overall, a quaint natural wonder! The place is open only during the blooming season September-October every year and hundreds of people throng it to take in its beauty. This is a downside for people like us who seek nature combined with some ever-elusive ‘Shanti’ or ‘calm.’ In search of this calm, I planned the next floral getaway in the Himalayas. (The image at the top of this blog was taken in Kaas, picture credits to Rahul :))
- Valley of Flowers, Uttarakhand: Visiting this place requires more than just money and time. It requires a certain level of physical fitness, as this valley is nestled in the Himalayas. For someone who could not run even 100m without stopping for a breath in 2013, completing this high-altitude trek in 2019 was a moment of great personal satisfaction and growth. I was fortunate to have been accompanied by two close friends from different phases of my life. One was my roommate in MBBS and the other was my teacher during MD (though we are only two years apart in age). The Valley of Flowers is a UNESCO world heritage site as well. On the way, we witnessed such beautiful flowers with pleasant personalities, nature’s masterpieces growing in every nook and cranny of the rocky Himalayas. The views were brilliant and those of us who walked farthest were rewarded with the gift of calm, silence, and the pleasant company of a gurgling river by our side.
- The Bluebell Festival, Haller Bos, Belgium: When I got a scholarship to attend a short course of 21 days on Health system strengthening in Antwerp, Belgium; I was thrilled. This was the first time I would be going abroad! I looked up the places I could visit on the weekends and found this ‘Blue Forest,’ the blooming season coincided with my stay, and I could visit the place after a short bus trip from Antwerp to Halle. The tall trees in the forest stood amongst a blue-purple bed of flowers swaying at their feet. I walked and walked and walked, guided by the impeccable map provided for free at the entrance. I was alone, but not lonely. A calm meditative experience indeed.
Hallerbos Forest, Belgium - I would love to visit more of these natural flowering delights in the coming years. Yumthang Valley, Sikkim; Nilakurinji blooms, Kerala, Dzukou Valley, Nagaland, and the likes! I am ending this year on a flowery note, content with the different-coloured flowers I see around me in rural Solapur.
- Happy New Year 2025 everyone!