Simran Lal
It is that time of the year when everything feels and smells festive. The light has changed – there is a beautiful golden glow in the early mornings and late afternoons.
The totas chirp wildly, and the Saptaparni (Alstonia Scholaris) is in bloom with its subtle but highly intoxicating fragrance, which wafts by as I go for my evening walks.
Interestingly, the wood of the saptaparni is used to make blackboards. Hence, scholaris. But it is also called the ‘Devil’s Tree’ for some odd reason, and as my neighbour said to me recently, a little bit of devilishness is quite intoxicating!
As I was adorning my beautiful devi with a mogra mala and adding desi gulab around her feet, I was struck by the intimacy of doing something like this. The idea of alankaar or adorning the idols is something I had not really paid much attention to nor connected with but suddenly I realised that even doing something so basic created a much deeper connection with the energy of that deva and was a meditative act full of shraddha.
How can one not be magically transported to paradise with the whiff of the delicate parijat which blooms only during Sharad?
The heady desi gulabs and mogras smell even better and more luscious at this time of year.
The Sharad Purnima is the most golden and romantic of all Purnimas. The evening of the raas lila and the romance between Krishna and his Radha.
It is the season of the feminine and the devi. I can now feel it – it’s cooling down and getting dark earlier. And although it is festive and there will be much socialising, it does somehow feel like a more introspective time to me.
