India. My first vignette of it. A riot of light, colour and the maddening fragrance of flowers. It was the beginning of the festive season and everything smelt of Marigold and Jasmine and the Indian Rose. A haunting madness. A fragrant reminiscing, that carries along long after the moment is gone. But then India, for all its misconceptions and conceptions doesn’t have a cheat sheet. Nothing prepares you for it. And it’s only in coming face to face with India that one really gets it. Deeply and mostly with a moving ecstasy. But nothing remains more that India’s spirit for festivity. And the lingering scent of the Desi Gulab, Raat ki Rani and Genda among a million other spellbinding and wild scents. A walk along the morning flower market streets lined up with throngs of chameli, champa and endless flowers in endless hues reinforces the idea of a beautiful tradition and an almost time arching story of culture and human civilization. To know India in the end is a journey unlike any other. To experience and understand it’s floral magic is one such way. Ways of a journey we all must take at-least once.