A merry breeze caressed me with an affectionate touch, gesticulating it was time to unfurl myself to the world. There was a tingling sensation in the peduncle and my sepals opened; for the first time, in this bewildering yet bewitching bank of river Yamuna. Elysian visions! The whole landscape was bathed in the warm glow of the rising sun, the water was scintillating enticingly. The sky seemed to have been stroked with a paintbrush of crimson and gold. The wreathing nimbus ushered an incomprehensible joy in me. Our side of the pond was the most enchanting. Our inflorescence was the pink constellation, the crown jewels adorning the infinite sky that was Yamuna.

The budhood at Yamuna was enriched with joyful threads of life, strings of which were held by cis-buds who were the stalks of my life back then. In our pastimes, we would play our favorite game. The bud whose roots were the longest and the firmest was declared the winner. Always sleeping in the cozy embrace of the elderlies, no mud or drop of water could touch me under their warm leaves. Drunk in vorfreude, I had all my future plans in place; my exclusive spot, extending the inflorescence’s lineage everything was going smoothly and as per the plan. But who knew…

Thunder came marching from far away with increasing tread. A curtain of rain beat down from the heaven. A cloud, ominous and black, drifted over the mountain and released a sudden, heavy shower. Yamuna was overwhelmingly filled up to the brim, the wind was sighing and thrashing everything that came it’s way. Half of the river’s flora was now submerged in the river. I witnessed our elderlies plummet due to the torrential rain. The raging waves splashed us from one side to the other. The incompassionate gales were now to devour our happy hospice forever now.

The claws of fear gripped me when I realized my roots; my prized possessions of pride, were now unattached. I, rootless, helpless was now flowing away from my home. I splashed my leaves in resistance but in vain. I was unwillingly and forcibly dragged to a distant land, alone.

I woke up only to see myself stuck in the black hole of Calcutta. The swamp was an eyesore. I was morbidly injured, my leaves were now soaked with water, my outer petals were now decaying. I stood at the edge of my life, recanting solemnly. I chucked up the sponge. With the fading thin strips of light in the lead sky I could see the sunset upon my life.

I thought I was in heaven when an amber-tinted ray of light struck me. It was so ethereal. I heard a silvery voice speak to me. “You are the paradigm of life for everyone. When you were a part of the inflorescence, you were in a shell built up with love and comfort. But to grow you have to break free. Hence, you faced these tribulations only to polish yourself, to grow and nurture yourself. Bloom with grace wherever you are planted. In order to grow and gain wisdom, you must have the mud- the obstacles of life and its suffering. Before you blossom in the sun, you must make your way through, you must honour the darkest part of yourselves and the most painful of life’s experiences, because they allow us to birth our most beautiful self. You are the ‘womb of the world’, open your petals one by one, unaffected by the slush of where you are. Emerge beautiful and whole and trust the unseen paths that lead you to the Sun. Bloom with love, bloom with knowledge, bloom with strength and bloom with your whole being.”

This is how I became the enthralling floral, the sacred flower and the symbol of purity, fertility, enlightenment, hope and love.