Rose rose
The much eagerly awaited Mount mary’s Bandra fair has started. Like thousands of people in Mumbai and India my childhood has been sign posted around this event.
After a long two year pause due to covid, it is here again. so are the people.
Since I live literally right next to the Church, Last 10 days I have been waking up to novena prayers and mass starting at 5.30 am. I feel blessed to say the least.
This also means I have to for the next 7 days navigate 1000s of devotees coming to this pilgrimage site, vendors selling flowers , wax offering sweets to everyone, just to get to my house.
I am mostly ok with that.
Yesterday as I stepped out a couple of young girls came running to sell roses.
I bought.They looked fresh .
Today as I was returning after my morning run, I saw the rose selling women prepping for the day. I asked one of them if the roses were fresh, they looked suspiciously like the previous day. I ofcourse naively assumed they got fresh roses everyday.
The lady, paused and looked at me..I thought she didn’t understand or was offended .
She then picked a rose from the nearby pile … Looked at it from a few angles, and then carefully plucked the outermost petals that had been blackened, by constant touch and withered by the weather. And once this step was over, she gently blew into the center of the flower, in a very caring coaxing way.
And… lo and behold, the rose became fresh again.
It certainly looked plumper and bigger.
She handed the flower to me and said, “Abhi fresh ho gaya” – Now it is fresh.
I smiled and took the flower, she did not take the money I offered.
I was half smiling as I held the fresh rose thinking , how every day we had the same choice, plucking and the withered outer layers , breathing into the center, and Lo and Behold.
The Rose, rose. And I know now it will rise tomorrow, yet again.
