There is a Mahilampoo (Spanish cherry/Bullet wood) tree that stands gracefully at the entrance of the Srinivasa Perumal Temple in Pappanaikenpalayam. It was planted by the Acharyas who visited the temple in 1923.
As it stands next to my parents’ home, I remember the many moments my father and I spent watching the tree from our window, especially when it rained. My father, now 83, says he remembers seeing it when was a child himself. My friends and I played under its shade, collected the fallen flowers and strung them into garlands to offer the deity.
The leaves are glossy, dark green, oval-shaped and it has creamy fragrant flowers. The wood is valuable, extremely strong and a rich deep red in colour. I also recollect older people picking the fallen leaves, flowers, fruits and even the bark and discussing what they were going to do with it. The powder from dried flowers, the juice of fresh flowers, a decoction prepared from the bark, the tender leaves, ripe and unripe fruits are all used in Ayurvedic treatments and are said to relieve headaches, toothaches, bleeding gums, insect bites, and diarrhoea. Every time I visit my parents’ home, my eyes are first drawn to this tree.
I breathe in the fragrance of the flowers and pick some from the ground below the branches. For me, this tree is like an old companion that i still have silent conversations with.
Another favourite is the frangipani (Plumeria/temple tree/champa). This was part of a Sunday evening walk ritual. My mother would hand me a manjapai and send me off on a walk to VOC park. I would collect fallen flowers and put them into that bag.
I particularly loved the frangipani tree at ATT colony, which grew inside the compound of a bungalow. A few branches leaned outside and the flowers were easy to pick off. I remember how my heart leaped in joy every time I caught sight of flowers from a distance. The frangipani flowers are used in traditional medicine to cure ulcers, swellings and also distilled to make essential oils for perfumes.
I wish we could still walk on the roads admiring nature’s bounty. We should get back into the habit of taking our children to parks and sitting under trees and admiring the leaves and flowers.
