‘Nil Manel 2’

Around here, everything stems from the springtime. After the relaxation of the winter, as the sun rises higher and the snows melt and the fresh winds come in from the south, doors throughout our valley spring open, and out pour streams of people, all laughing and shouting and heading up into the hills carrying wicker baskets and plastic bags and bedsheets all tied together in big knots – whatever they can find to gather the bounty that is about to be unveiled.

Schoolchildren are given two weeks off during this important period, and working-age adults are given a week off each, paid leave. The elderly are to bring out lemon-and-mint water at noontime. This is mandatory, state policy, as it has been for as long as anyone can remember. Around here, tending to the flowers is an important ritual, though the only ones that really take it seriously are the government accountants and the state-run flower presses. Everyone else just makes up a big picnic lunch as the sun comes up and hightails it out into the hills.

They return in the evening, overflowing with flowers. Reds and purples and yellows and blues, flowers overflowing from pillowcases and backpacks and cardboard boxes, stuffed under hats and jammed into saris and crammed into pockets. And behind all of them, trails of pink petals and jasmine scents and confused bumblebees leading far back up into the hills, beneath the pines, glimmering slightly in the moonrise.

That night, before going home, they will bring their loads to the State Press, where the flowers will be cured and prepared and pressed in huge discarded encyclopaedias, where they will stay until the right time, when they are properly ready to be used. Around here, these flowers will be used to run our radios, our nightlights, our heated blankets, and the rest of those things that make lives a bit nicer. While keeping us warm and productive for the following year, these flowers will bring back with them a bit of the sun, the hills, the birds and ants – and even the faint impressions of articles from those old encyclopaedias.

Here's one now, barely legible: Aster: (n) 1. A star. 1a. Connected to the earth by means of a straw. 1b. Connected to the sky by means of an agreement.

This is part of a regular series of Himal's commentary on work by the Sri Lankan artist Chandraguptha Thenuwara.

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