Even before the sun fully rises and sunlight fills the place, Koyambedu flower market gets into work mode. When Margazhi arrives, the narrow lanes hum with extra urgency — sacks being delivered, colourful flowers weighed, vendors selling toranams in a loud and competitive manner since the month is thick with celebrations. Margazhi folds into New Year, New Year folds into Pongal, in between comes Christmas to grace the time and flowers become the quiet thread stitching the season together.
As you move further inside the market, it reveals the spirit of the season with a blossomed palette of colours. At the entrance, small-scale vendors sit cross-legged, weaving flowers behind heaps of kattina poo (weaved flowers) and small bags of uthiri poo (loose flowers) of malli (jasmine), jaathi malli (spanish jasmine), samanthi (marigold), and different colours of roja (rose) — flowers that appear throughout the year and anchor daily rituals. They are an expected familiar sight. And yet, December (flower) alters the visual rhythm. A woman inside an auto stacked with gunny bags of blooms, grabbed my attention as I spotted her hair crowned with deep purple December poo. The image lingers — fleeting, but unmistakably Margazhi.
This visual translates into a bigger picture of demand. “During Margazhi, only two flowers truly dominate — Jasmine and December poo,” says Selvam, a garland seller at the market. Cool weather triggers a heavy bloom. A couple of stalls away, a vendor selling his last batch of December poo— imported from Vellore — speaks of scale. “Throughout Margazhi, prices range anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 2,000 per kilo,” he says. Mostly worn in the hair, December poo appear in two hues: purple and blue, their rarity standing out amid the other colourful and easily available flowers that otherwise dominate the market.
Yet Margazhi’s floral story stretches far beyond what is visible today. Historian Meenakshi Devaraj explains that the connection between the season and flowers is deeply cultural. “When you talk about Margazhi, kolam becomes bigger and more elaborate,” she says. Poosani poo (yellow pumpkin flowers), placed at the centre of kolam from Margazhi through Thai, are seen as markers of prosperity. She points to literature such as the ‘Tiruppavai’, which mentions the ‘Madhavi flower’ — a bloom specific to this season. “Flower sellers once sold it regularly, but today it has completely disappeared from markets,” she notes. Other flowers like mullai and jaathi, rooted in Tamil life since Sangam era, carried deep sentimental value, used for harvests, first flowering rituals and auspicious beginnings.
The loss, she says, is tied to fading awareness and environmental changes. “We were once a society deeply connected to flowers. Today, the place that the rose occupies, no native flower has been given that importance,” she says. Urbanisation has thinned not just gardens but knowledge itself.
Even so, Margazhi continues to hold space for quiet returns. Alli (water lilies) bloom in ponds around Chennai — Thiruvidanthai, for example — during early mornings, slowly re-entering markets and hairstyles, says Meenakshi, pointing to landscapes that continue to remember what markets forget.
Margazhi reveals itself here not through hymn or stage, but through floral culture. Between abundance and absence, the season gently asks which floral traditions we continue to nurture, and which we allow to fade from view.