It’s never easy recreating the past, especially if it comes from a beloved book with a dedicated fanbase. Yet, Mani Ratnam's film Ponniyin Selvan has pleased both readers and viewers. As a lover of history, I was struck by the attention to detail: the temple jewellery, stone (not cement) walls, and leather or palm leaf inscriptions (not paper). Yet, what held my attention most was a green, small flower behind actor Karthi's ear, which he named in a dialogue: the siris.
The siris (Albizia lebbeck) is a tree which you may have missed in the way we miss things that are always there. It has light-green flowers that give out a heady, subtle smell and long seed pods that go clack-clack in the wind. When one asks people the names of Indian flowers, they seem to remember only superlatives: the most beautiful ones (like Semal, Bombax ceiba with its huge, scarlet blossoms) or the most fragrant (such as Akash mallige, with its ethereal scent). The siris is neither the most beautiful nor the most fragrant, but as a shade-giving tree with flowers full of food for birds and butterflies, it is an important one.
Seeing the siris on the big screen is good because we need a better coming together of pop culture and our natural heritage. Usually, everything that needs to be said in movies is said through roses (exchanged between lovers), jasmine (in a woman's hair) or marigold (it even has a song in the movie, Dilli 6). It's as if other kinds of biodiversity doesn't exist. Seeing the siris in Ratnam's film is also a reminder that when recreating aspects of our past, natural heritage like flora and fauna may be the only things that remain, as palaces get ruined and landscapes change.
On a warm summer morning, I watched a grass-yellow butterfly flit on siris flowers. The yellow of the butterfly merged well with the flowers, and both seemed to be enjoying the abundance of the sun. They were joined by a Purple sunbird, its metallic purple-blue shining like armour; its long, probing beak sword-like. In winters, I watched ruby-eyed, migratory Ashy drongos sit on the branches of siris and pick off bees mid-air in quicksilver dives. It seems amazing that centuries ago, another author or nature-lover might have seen the same tree and wildlife interactions.
When storms come, I hear the siris pods go swoosh-swoosh, and my ears intercept the wind before my eyes turn to it. The tree, just standing there, adds to the electricity of the storm. They say we can't love what we don't know, and so it is important for us to know the names of native wildlife around us. The name siris came to me after a storm and a search for pod-bearing trees, because I couldn’t forget the sound and feel of the spectacle.
I'm all for vibrant, foreign flowers that travel the world and enter our gardens -- the dahlia, geranium and chrysanthemum, for example. But a special corner of my heart is reserved for names that don't come to mind easily and are native to this land -- like the palash, saptaparni, vajradanti and sita ashok. They may or may not have starring lines in films, but they deserve pride of place in our drawing-room conversations and lives.
Neha Sinha is a conservation biologist and author. She can be reached on twitter @nehaa_sinha.