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She loves delving into the mundanities of pedestrian life and unveil the underlying magic that they hold, in her writings. She has dabbled effortlessly between children in her creative writing classes and her workshops for teachers. This has given her an understanding of the spectrum of human emotions that reflect in her articles. LESS ... MORE
The best part about inter-community marriages is that one gets to dabble in various food palates and dip one’s brush in a many-hued palette, that everyday becomes a celebration, almost! Well, I am a Bengali-Assamese hybrid married to a Maharashtrian who is more of a ‘Delhiite’. So, I get to embrace a multi-cultural canvas – colourful and delectable!
It was Dussehra and we were supposed to visit my mother-in-law. Just a few minutes before we were about to leave, my husband receives a call from her. He had a perturbed look on his face, quizzically asking her, “Where am I supposed to find this leaf now?” I watched his facial expression change as he listened attentively, the creased brows relaxed as he probably understood the directions given. A leaf-treasure-hunt perhaps had to be undertaken, I guessed.
We were to find the “Apta” leaf from the garden downstairs. There’s a Maharashtrian ritual of greeting relatives and friends on Dussehra, with these leaves that symbolized gold, peace, prosperity and good health. So, we were on a real treasure hunt, for the ‘sonpatta’ also scientifically called Bauhinia racemosa. The Beedi plant.
We went looking for the ‘golden leaf’, the sun was about to set and we wanted to find it before darkness. I asked my husband what it looked like and he said it was “shaped like an apple, but two-dimensional” rather like cow hooves. We managed to find the leaves and present it to my mother-in-law. My curious soul wanted to know the story behind the offering of these leaves. So, as I relished a meal of shrikhand-alu-puri and jalebis, I found out that this ritual began with a person called Kautsa. He lived in Ayodhya, when Lord Rama ruled the kingdom. At the end of his learning at the ashram of Guru Varatantu, Kautsa wanted to express his gratefulness to his teacher in the form of “guru-dakshina”. The teacher refused to accept anything but Kautsa insisted that a token of respect and gratefulness was a must. Hence, to ward him off the teacher demanded 140 million gold coins. As Kautsa didn’t know what to do, he went to the King of Ayodhya. Lord Ram asked him to stand under the Apta tree until he could think of a solution. The disciple stood there patiently for three days, at the end of which even the Lord of wealth-Kuber was impressed. He transformed the leaves of the tree to gold and showered them upon Kautsa, who presented the golden leaves to his teacher with utmost respect and reverence on the day of Dussehra.
Another story is that, when the Maratha warriors came back from battle, they offered the spoils of war to the deities they worshipped and to their loved ones. In memory of the tradition, people began to exchange ‘Apta’ leaves. With the ever rising price of gold, I think these leaves are more valuable as they can do away with headaches when made into a paste and applied on the forehead; also, when you meet loved ones, offer the golden leaves; the happiness, the camaraderie, the feast everything dissolves into a heady, joy-inducing mixture that gives you that much needed relief from the diurnal drudgery of life.
Since childhood, whenever I would visit the Durga puja pandals, “Kola Bou” or the banana bride always intrigued me. It’s represented by a banana plant draped in a red-bordered white saree, smeared with vermillion and placed on the right side of Lord Ganesh. Incense sticks, flowers and sandalwood paste are offered to her because she is supposed to be Lord Ganesh’s wife.
However, I felt that there had to be more to this than what I’ve been told since childhood. As I delve further into the “Kola Bou” worship, many are of the view that the veneration of the ‘Nabapatrika’ could be linked to the primitive practice of praying to Mother Earth by farmers, for a rich harvest. Gradually this got stitched into the festivities as Durga Puja came into prominence as an autumnal festival.
The ‘Nabapatrika’ is the sacred amalgamation of the nine leaves of plants/trees that are used by us on a daily basis, as spices or medicines or a part of our staple diets: banana, turmeric, wood apple, pomegranate, arum, rice, Ashok, colacassia, saal. Each of this is supposedly a form of the Goddess. As far as the placement of the ‘Nabapatrika’ next to Lord Ganesha is concerned, it is conjectured that because the deity is credited to be the creator of 18 medicinal plants, also known as Astadasausadhirsti, hence the ‘kola bou’ is positioned near him.
Immense importance has been given to trees and plants in our cultural celebrations and worship. After all, what is more important than praying to the flora around us; our eternal source of sustenance. As I look into their botanical details, I decide to plant a few of the ‘Nabapatrika’ seedlings at home, thus symbolically sowing seeds of love, peace and prosperity.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.
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