Just Walking Around

Walking amongst the flowers ….

The festive season has just concluded and everyone is back to the usual grind. The same old traffic jams the same old rush in the trains same old routine job.Looking at all this chaos around a  song comes to my mind , a lilting melody ….”Yeh Kahan Aaageye Hum Yuhi Saath Saath Chalte” from Silsila . A song playing in the background as the tall angry young man Amitabh Bacchan and the beauteous Rekha walking hand in hand amidst the most beautiful places on Earth , among the valley of flowers especially the bright pink and red Tulips. Totally awesome …

You wont find the same serenity but you can take that walk , a walk among the flowers right here in the midst of all the chaos in this Maxim City of Mumbai , close to the one of the busiest Suburban Railway Station if not The Busiest . That’s right  here in Dadar.

Just next to the station on the south side of the FOB starts a small lane filled with small hole in the wall shops . Close to 20 stalls lined right till the end where the flyover bridge opposite the Dadar station ends. The business starts here at the ghostly hour of the early morning around 4 am every day. Tons of flowers come here from all across India mostly by trains or in huge trucks. The bags upon bags of flowers are transported to this small bylane known locally as the Phool Gully or the Dadar Phool Market.

You can see the flower vendors some owners of small shops some traders or even some who pick up loose stock converge here to pick the best lot at that ghostly hour. Pitch black except for the street lights and lights on the stations these flower vendors get to work. Opening up huge jute filled bags of bright Orange and Yellow Marigolds . Spilling on the ground like small pom-poms. Or now during the winters its those bright yellow or lemon colored Shevanti or the maroon and orange tinged small Zinnia’s . Now a days you can you can even spot some exotic flowers like the Tulips or Orchids or even the Carnations which go into making of lovely flower bouquets . Those you can give to your sweet heart.

Walking here early in the morning is like walking among a beehive of activity or something similar to a warzone. You will find the unloaders , unloading the flowers in bulk at the stalls . Small and retail vendors haggling away with the shopowners to pick up a  few 10’s of kilos of the best and freshest flower to be carried back as far as Kalyan & Dombivili in the Central Suburbs or Borivili and Dahisar on the Werstern side. Some are local flower sellers who take their stock and sit below the flyover bridge and start making garlands weaving these flowers into multicoured “haars” or garlands ready to adorn the necks of the various deities across the city in temples and in our homes. You can see largely the women folk working fervently at these flowers and deftly weaving them using nothing but a string of thread and magically transforming the flowers into those lovely garlands. Even small girls as small as 5 year olds work along their mothers , their aunts or the old grand mothers and transform these flowers into “Vennis” or “Gajra” . Both of these flower adornments used by the women to tuck into their hair buns and look gorgeous.  You will find families upon families thriving upon the measly income generated after selling these garlands and Vennis to the people entering and exiting the station.

While walking among these flowers you can literally surrounded by the wafts of fragrance . The sweet smell of those red roses and pink roses that come from the dry Rajasthan or Kutch. The distinct fragrance of the  small white “chadi” used in the Haar or the over powering smell of “Mogra” which are the costliest but the best for making the Gajra’s. Not long ago a middle class Marathi manoos would profess his love for his wife by buying a couple of these delicate Mogra gajra’s while returning home from work. A modest romantic gift for his wife to see that special smile on her lips , a smile which would melt his own stress and agony of day. A few moments of bliss shared between the two.

Then there are the faint lingering smells of flowers like white sontakka , bright orange chaffa or the yellow bud like kavti chaffa sold in lose by the dozen. I have seen people buying those small garlands made up of these orange chaffa at the traffic junctions or at the Red light Signals and placing them on the small murti’s inside their cars .The fragrance so sweet and overpowering you wont even need to use an air fresheners for the entire day. Try it next time , its better than the artificial fragrance in our otherwise artificial and routine life.

Walking here in this Phool Market ,transports you to an entirely different world . A world amidst the chaos but still fragrant from the beauty of nature.