By: Dr Sanjay Parva Email: [email protected]
There was a time when Malmoh bloomed with its own soul – a quiet, unassuming village holding tightly to this Nallah Ferozpura brook, where spring didn’t just arrive, it engulfed. It came in waves, not just of color, but of scent – of flowers whose names we didn’t always know, but whose fragrances and colors etched themselves into memory.
The first whiff of spring would travel with the melting snow, slipping through the cracks of wooden windows, seeping into the pherans we had just begun to fold away. It was the scent of damp earth, of thawing roots stirring beneath the surface. Then, suddenly, as if overnight, the village would transform into a breathing garden, each compound competing with the next, until Malmoh itself smelled like an enchanted meadow trapped in time. It was a garden that no one planted but everyone cared for.
In our compound, we had a small garden full of flowers – not a curated, manicured affair, but an unruly, almost mystical collection of plants that seemed to appear as if by destiny. Someone, somewhere, had always procured a sapling from a passing traveler, a friend from another village, or an elder who had once visited the grand Mughal gardens of Srinagar. We didn’t know all their names, but we knew their presence. They knew ours. The dialogue between the two was unsaid, unspoken, but felt.
Among them, the Kashmiri Gulab stood proud – thicker, wilder, and deeper in scent than the ones seen today. Its petals, velvety to the touch, would unfold into a dense cluster of fragrance, its aroma so heady that stepping into the garden at dawn felt like stepping into an embrace. But it was the climber rose that claimed the garden as its own. It was blood red in color and spread like the rumors of a love affair going on in the village.
It spread like wildfire across the doss – the raw brick wall, its vines racing up and over, spilling across the compound like an unrestrained force of nature. Its blood-red roses bloomed in thousands, an intoxicating explosion of color and scent. In peak season, the fragrance would begin long before one entered the village – a soft whisper carried by the wind, growing stronger with every step until, at last, it wrapped around you completely. The doss was the highest level of security that one could or should afford. The only person who could steal anything was the local galwan – the thief, but he was friends with all. His friendships turned him jobless.
Malmoh was not alone in this intoxication. Every compound had its own floral kingdom, each one adding its unique note to the village’s collective perfume. Across a narrow footpath, in a neighbor’s yard, a bed of shabran (carnations) swayed, their peppery scent mingling with the sweeter roses. In a shaded corner, wild violets clung stubbornly to the earth, their scent subtle but deep, like a secret waiting to be uncovered.
But the most magical among them grew in Avatarji’s compound – a single white Gilder Rose. No one else had a Gilder Rose in the entire village. It stood like a celestial anomaly, a cluster of white brilliance against the green. Its fragrance was unlike any other – light yet commanding, delicate yet impossible to ignore. Some said the air around it smelled like snowfall, others like a distant memory of spring rain.
When the wind was right, its scent would weave itself into the fabric of the village, lingering in wo’ez –doorways, slipping through the narrow lanes, settling onto pherans hung out to dry. People would pause as they passed Avatarji’s house, some taking an extra moment to inhale, to carry its imprint with them a little longer.
It was this compounding effect of Malmoh’s gardens that made spring unlike any other time of the year. Fragrances didn’t stand alone; they intertwined, layering upon one another, forming a new scent that belonged neither to a single flower nor to a single home – it belonged to the village itself.
In the afternoons, when the sun warmed the earth, the scent would rise like a mist, wrapping the village in its golden haze. By evening, as the winds changed, it would scatter in all directions, perhaps vanishing into the distant paddy fields where farmers lay on their backs on a small grassy patch not.
And at night, the air would turn still, and the scent of the roses, of violets, of the lone Gilder Rose – they would settle into the village’s breath, making even sleep feel perfumed. Today, Malmoh’s air is different.
The raw brick walls where climber roses once clung have been replaced by cement. The Kashmiri Gulab has retreated into distant memories, and the white Gilder Rose – Avatarji’s gift to the village – was lost when his house turned to rubble.
The fragrance of spring no longer announces itself. The air, once embroidered with a thousand scents, now smells of dust, of machines, of something that lacks memory. The gardens are gone, and so is the heady intoxication of April afternoons.
But somewhere, in an untended patch of land, a stubborn rose bush still blooms. Its scent, though faint, still carries the whisper of an older spring, of a time when Malmoh was not just a village, but a perfumed dream.
And maybe, if one were to stop, to breathe deeply, to listen to the wind – one might still catch a lingering trace of that forgotten fragrance, just for a moment.
An author, a communications strategist, Dr Sanjay Parva was a debut contestant in Assembly elections
