We have a lot of ‘mullapoo’(mogra) plants in our ancestral house, because it’s my mother’s favourite flower. Whenever she’s here, she has her tiny mullapoo routine. She steps out into our garden every evening with a small basket, and picks out the buds which are ready to bloom. She then strings them together, quite enjoying the whole process of it, and then keeps it next to the idol of a deity in the ‘pooja’ room. She wears it in her hair the next morning after the buds have bloomed, and sometimes even wears it in her hair while sleeping, saying that the mullapoo makes the hair smell beautiful the next morning. The soft, beautiful fragrance of the flowers wafts through the air when she walks around the next day.. This, in the picture, is one of those plants, and maybe an unmindful passing down of a personal tradition that a child picks up from a mother, unknowingly..
