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Chennai / The New Indian Express

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From Jasmine to Kanakambaram: How flowers in Chennai reveal caste, class divides

As the morning light filters through the doorway of Sujathas puja room in central Chennai, she kneels before the altar, arranging fresh malli buds and tulsi leaves with practised hands. Saraswati receives the first strand, followed by Kubera, Mahalakshmi, Vinayagar, and Perumal. Each deity has its place and preference. After gods are pleased, the remnant flowers go in her own hair. She favours the white flowers. But there are flowers she will never wear. The bold orange kanakambaram, for instance, vivid against dark hair, lasting longer than the expensive whites that fade by afternoon. She has never worn it. Not once. They say some flowers suit decent girls and some make you look local, Sujatha says. If you wear white jasmine or mullai, you are seen as respectable. If you wear kanakambaram, you are labelled lower class. A lesson taught since her childhood. In another part of the city, writer Shalin Maria Lawrence wears her flowers differently. Three mozham minimum, long, fragrant, and abundant. I cannot wear just one or two mozham. I need three or more, very long. She recalls her jasmine varieties like long-lost friends. Madurai malli is one of the best, you can see the quality, completely different from other mallis. Next to that, Velankanni malli is my favourite. Its almost greenish, like moonlight. But the flowers of North Madras carry different names and different histories. Working-class women from my area preferred kanakambaram and December poo. The latter is a light violet shade available only during Margazhi. Then there was kadhambam, the cheapest option, a mixture of leftover flowers. A bit of green tulsi, malli, and kanakambaram, like the Indian flag colours. Vendors and working-class women wore it, Shalin explains. She maps the flowers onto communities. Kanakambaram is usually worn by Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi (DBA) women. I have never seen upper-caste women wear kanakambaram; they do but mostly only for Instagram. They wont wear any flower other than malli because malli is considered pure. Shalin admits to choosing kanakambaram deliberately for the cover of her upcoming book Pombala Panchayat because it reflects DBA working-class politics. People even call kanakambaram velakaran gappu, the flower of vegetable sellers, associated with working women selling groceries on the streets. The economics of flowers is clear. Malli, for North Madras people, always denoted a higher class. Theatre artiste A Mangai confirms this reading. Flowers are not merely decorative. There is a deeper politics behind who wears what. Dominant caste people dont wear kanakambaram because they think it belongs to a lower community. My mother never let me wear too much kanakambaram, Mangai recalls. Maybe because of this social perception. Religious identities layer onto the choices too. Shalin informs, For festivals, we use lily, but lily is seen as a Christian flower, offered to St Joseph. Now my daughter likes lotus for Buddha Purnima. In North Madras, during full moon, Buddhist communities buy all the lotuses. You wont find even one. The visual language of flowers too speaks volumes according to photographer Poongodi Mathiarasu. He says, Kanakambaram is mostly worn by working-class women, often paired with a rose, creating a perfect colour wheel combination that complements the skin tone of marginalised women. Colourism also influences the choice of flowers. The formula When Shalin worked in an IT company where many employees were Brahmins, she observed a different aesthetic. Married Brahmin women wore just a tiny thundu of flowers, never long strands. They said long flowers are only for weddings. Every day, they must put a little, for god and for identity. The formula became upper-caste identity equals small, controlled, cultured flower. Long, fragrant flowers equal immoral or seductive. If I wear a lot of mallipoo with sari, some men say I look like an item. In malls, if I wear kanakambaram, people stare. They think its ugly. But its a beautiful colour! Cinema has long reinforced these codes, casting flowers especially jasmine as tokens of seduction. Film critic Ranjani Krishnakumar, who has been examining floral adornment in Tamil cinema has found this to be true in her decade-old research paper too, but now sees the narratives shifting. In the context of marriageability, she notes the shifts in recent films. Take Veera Dheera Sooran, for instance. The wedding scene places pre-marital sex (non-chaste) and remarriage (immodest) squarely within the bounds of nativity, almost casually, without special drama around it. Youll see the female lead dressed as the traditional bride, wearing copious mallipoo, even as she isnt, by traditional standards, the ideal bride. Meanwhile, Nila, of Kudumbasthan, doesnt bother with any of that no sari, no flowers at her registrar office wedding. In another class, in Vidaamuyarchi, we see Kayal wear flowers at her wedding, but she is surely modern in that shes unlikely to be caught wearing flowers outside of social situations that especially demand it. Neither would Shriya of Kadhalikka Neramillai. Ranjani observes that in each of these stories, flowers are almost incidental. It is perhaps coincidental that each of these women then go on to break the boundaries of what marriage itself is. Flowers as signals In thousands of garment factories across Tamil Nadu, flowers carry additional weight. Writers Nandita Shivakumar and Nikita Joseph have documented how women workers endure punishing shifts racing to complete targets as high as 1,000 pieces daily, but with flowers in their hair. In their research, they observed that these flowers come at minimal cost. Temple offerings, children picking blooms before school, home gardens grown in repurposed paint tins. One worker, Lakshmi from Erode, told them: The jasmine flower scent helps with the headaches from the factory chemicals and heat. Its better than medicine, and we cant afford medicine anyway. The Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union has observed another dimension, the researchers note. Union organiser Muthumari explained to them: When a woman who regularly wears flowers to the factory suddenly stops, we know to check on her. Its often a silent signal that shes facing violence at home. Mangai confirms this extends beyond factories. In rural Tamil Nadu, certain flowers have even been used as a sign of domestic abuse, placed outside the house as a signal. What remains Mangai maintains her relationship with flowers on her own terms. I love flowers. They bring joy to the moment. They may wither quickly, but they are full of life right now. When she travels outside Tamil Nadu, the teasing begins, she says. Cinema stereotypes South Indians. Jasmine in the hair becomes a caricature. But I like wearing flowers, even if people tease me for looking too Madrasi. In Delhi and Bombay, friends would laugh. But I still do wear them. Shalins therapist recently gave her specific advice: restart buying mallipoo. She recalls how her uncle, who worked at Simpsons, where gardens grew thick with flowers, would bring her malli. He would bring mallipoo for me in the evenings, she says, adding how she would then string it with the neighbourhood akkas and paatis, using banana fibre. Its a whole mindfulness process, she says. Mangai also frames it anthropologically. Anthropologically, flowers were the first human adornment. The desire to be beautiful is an evolved human idea. Shalin, meanwhile, frames it politically. Flowers are used as weapons of seduction, which affects how women are treated. But they should only be used for our individual happiness. However, people also note that flowers are fast disappearing. Last year in Nagarcoil, I bought kanakambaram, but now in Chennai, its rare. Women who used to wear it have stopped. Even their daughters dont wear it. You wont see kanakambaram in Anna Nagar or the posh areas, you only see them near temples or local streets, Shalin notes. Sujatha has also noticed this shift. Back then, mothers wore flowers proudly. Todays kids arent wearing them like the way we used to do. They only do it for special occasions. Despite flowers disappearing on many fronts, one might wonder if something as small and seemingly simple as flowers could carry the weight of caste and class. But as Shalin correctly puts it, Hierarchy is in the eyes of the people who view them.

1 Dec 2025 6:00 am