Aroma touch!!!

A little try to describe a marvelous creation of nature… a flower named “Parijat”. I don’t know how many of you have actually seen this master piece of Almighty, but one thing is for sure if you haven’t seen it, you have missed a stunning sight!

A topic is in a way very abstract, but these eyes everyday experiences its charisma and these hands could not stop to give it a try to describe it. Parijat flowers have four to eight petals arranged above and a vibrant orange tube in a pinwheel pattern. It is also named as ‘Harsinghar’ & ‘Shefali’. (yes… Shefali means Parijat!! :) )

These flowers are highly fragrant and will definitely catch you breath if you are passing anywhere within 50 meters of radius. These flowers blossom after sunset and its floral aroma reaches to the peak from 9 to 10 PM – a time when I normally come back from walk and my respiratory system is working at its best ;-). I just can’t stop inhaling, try very hard to understand whether am I breathing in the alluring fragrance or is it taking my breadth away :). Its beauty is at its peak in moonlight. No words can describe it. It is completely mesmerizing, rather hypnotizing :).

As soon as the dawn breaks, they drop one by one and literally form a carpet of snow-white petals and orange sepals on the earth (your self won’t allow you to walk on such a beautiful carpet). Some of the flowers won’t fall on the ground and will stay on leaves. 3-4 flowers on a single leaf with orange and white color with softest cover create an awesome sight.


This flower has a divine origin and is one of the gift from “Samudra Manthan”. Although most of the flowers are offered to God directly after picking from plants, Parijat is considered to be the only flower that can be collected from the ground and offered to God. It is also used to produce perfumes and face-packs and it also owns some medicinal properties.

This flower has romantic relevance and there are many interesting stories related to it. One is related to Lord Krishna: Both his wives Satyabhama and Rukmini wanted the tree in their courtyard and quarreled over it. But Krishna planted the tree in Satyabhama’s courtyard in a way that the flowers fall in Rukmini’s courtyard.

There are many other interesting facts about it and following site caught my eye:
http://www.whitelotusaromatics.com/fragrant/parijat5.html - THE FRAGRANT HARVEST – Exploring India’s aromatic traditions (also contains info about some other great floral elements like: Heena, Mehndi, Jasmin, Sandlewood, Kewada and Mitti :) )

So if you haven’t noticed this magnum-opus of nature yet, take some time out to observe its elegant beauty. (if you don’t find its plant nearer to your place, then… well… a good friend is always welcome to my home, ;-) anytime…:-) ).

Thol trip

As far as trips are concerned, this is the second trip I am writing about. This one was completely different, of course the last one being official. Where the last one went into the “ALRITE” category, this one was “SIMPLY MARVELLOUS”.

I ask: What is a good recipe for a successful trip? A group of friends whose mantra is “Enjoy and include everyone in that enjoyment”, people who are in a peppy, upbeat, happy mood, a mode of transportation, articles for sports in place, lotsa food and finally a good destination. And what you have in hand is a real delicacy. Ours was exactly the same.

We, a group of friends from office decided to have fun, the time incidentally being the occasion of one of us (namely Siddharth) leaving the office for greener pastures.
The place is called Thol which is a bird sanctuary on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Due to some reason, two of our members weren’t able to make it. The night before, I just hoped that the complete plan would get implemented, as making plans is a really easy task, implementation takes effort. (Pun definitely intended, hahaha)

Two people in different cars (Gaurang and Utpal) had to collect every one of us at 6 o’ clock in the morning. By the way, there were total 9 people in effect. J Though the road was bumpy we enjoyed the ride and didn’t even know when the time passed because of our animated (so called for the mimicking and exact dialogue deliveries by Pooja and Rajesh – the rest of us: Margi, me and Gaurang were audiences, just chipping in sentences to refresh actor’s memories) discussion about - of course our day before’s “Big Picture” meeting. About the other car, I would have to ask them to write about their ride.

I was thinking of skipping some small things but then decided otherwise – our morning nashta at a nukkad and pooja’s pics with the buffalo (worth seeing) and of course the time when we stopped to admire lotuses. Pal literally thought that the fields on the other side were better to look at than the lotuses, in which case he was somewhat right. (deadly na!)

The place looked nice on the outside but Utpal (who had already visited the place once) assured us that there was more to come. Well, we were able to see a few exotic birds, complete thanks to Malhar and his keen eyesight. Otherwise I think we would have just seen some sparrows, thought them to be exotic and moved on.
As we kept on walking, we found a very beautiful and a perfect place to settle down. It was our imagination of ‘the meadow’ ;). It was completely covered with trees not a single sun’s ray penetrating the shade, with the water from the lake adding to the beauty. The place was serene, exquisite and peaceful. There, we played badminton, only a little bit of cricket for the fear of the ball getting lost in the water, that too by the guys only, ate, chattered a lot, discussed and basically had fun. At that moment of time I felt contented with what was happening.

The time for leaving drew close and while walking back to the car, we made plans to come back in a season when there would be less heat. Though we were leaving, our day was far from finished yet, plans were made to watch a movie and off we went to a nearby multiplex. The drastic difference between the nature’s world we had left and the concrete world we had entered seemed huge. Yet, I was happy that we had time to spend together, away from the hustle and bustle of city.

(This seems like a huge blog but I couldn’t help myself and I let my thoughts and words run riot)

Naughty smiles :)

There are times when, in wrong situations, an unexpected smile arrives. When thoughts swirl in the mind and a spontaneous smile comes, it really is embarrassing when people stare. Doing something mischievous, following which the vivid expressions on my face, always give me away.

One such day I was in a peppy mood. Singing songs, greeting everyone I met, I was enjoying myself. On our office staircase, I started swinging to the song I was singing. Well, logically this shouldn’t be done, not when all your seniors sit on the same floors. But who cares about logic on a fine day! The moment I turned for taking another staircase, I almost collided with a group of people which included one of my seniors too. Even then the problem wasn’t me colliding, the problem was I had this huge idiotic smile on my face with my thoughts being: “I was dancing right here. What a pity! You missed!” Of course, everyone stared at me for seconds on end. To me it seemed like minutes. All of them had question marks on their faces. It was fun seeing them that way, as I knew they wouldn’t ask me the reason for my smile.

It feels great to have some secret joke to smile at or laugh at. These naughty smiles give different experiences to live in a dragging monotonous life.

Effortless expression

I present a piece whose creation required absolutely no effort. The words just flew from my mind. Other things that I have written needed at least some kind of effort, some thinking and some time that I needed to put into them, before they could be completed. But this one here, it was just effortless.

The meaning which the six lines explain is strangely fitting for me and the situation I wrote them in. But today, instead of dwelling on the reason behind, I just see the piece as a combination of words which I could put together to express myself.

I was and still am amazed that I am able to write, telling things I want to, in a beautiful way. This one here was one of the first things I wrote and so it’s close to my heart.

I close my eyes
A tear escapes
It seems like a diamond
And people watch it dazed
But for me, it is the loss of a lifetime
I never had opportunity to face.

Three days of heaven

Recently there has been a substantial increase in the traffic of Ahmedabad. The blame most probably lies on enormous vehicle sales that took place during Dashera time. Whatever the reason, it is pure hell to drive through. It is very draining to stand in a traffic jam for hours, inhaling all the carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. In the evening, it used to take me an hour and a half to reach my home for the drive of half an hour. Then came Diwali and the streets were thronged by feisty shoppers increasing the traffic woes. L And of course the fire crackers were the worst of it all.

But, after Diwali the scene has completely changed. I don’t know about the other states, but in Gujarat, the market remains closed for four days after the New Year has started and get opened up on the fifth day. This year, because of some astrological calculation, only three days are there. But these three days are pure heaven. Very less vehicles on the roads, pure air to breathe and complete relaxation of the mind. I wish these three days would continue forever.

A serious thought behind this: The way we humans are using the non renewable sources of energy and the amount of carbon dioxide produced being so huge, we really are slowly and steadily killing earth and of course along with the flora, fauna and ourselves. Everyone, and I mean everyone, the rich, the poor, the illiterate, the educated, the Indians, the Europeans, need to make a conscious effort to conserve energy, to start using the renewable sources (in whatever little things we can), stop deforestation at any cost, plant trees wherever possible, make the usage of fire crackers completely nil, stop wastage of water etc. These things are in our hands and we can practice them in our daily lives. Let’s wake up and stop killing the earth.