Kanai stood on the famed tulip fields, the neatly coloured flower lines stretching out behind her and over the horizon. Tilting her chin up, her fingertips delicately touching the brim of her hat, she posed for for the Insta shot. She looked gorgeous in her short white dress and black combat boots, and the pink and purple evening sky did its job of making her look ethereal in the glow of the setting sun. The frame was perfect.
As her friend fiddled with the phone trying to capture the moment, Kanai went back to the first time she had ever seen a tulip.
The Monday morning traffic was roaring around her as she sat on the edge of the sidewalk. The wide roads curved up and around her, carrying the cacophony of cars, buses and bike that zoomed by dangerously close to her feet. Nobody paid her any heed, citizens now used to dusty kids chilling by the roadside. Behind her, a municipality gardener sat digging small holes, spaced equally apart, a bundle of white flowers beside him.
“What flowers are these?”, she hollered at the gardener, even though he was just a few feet away.
There was no response, and the gardener did not turn towards her.
“Oi,” she screamed louder.
The man turned to her now, raising his chin impatiently to ask what she wanted. The cold was biting and he didn’t want to be out here a second longer than he needed to.
“What flowers?”, Kanai shouted, pointing her finger at the bundle.
“Too-lip”, the man shouted back.
Kanai walked over and sat down on the damp grass near the flowers. Touching the soft petals, she felt strangely happy. All these colourful little cups, so uniform, not a petal out of place - beauty and perfection that was so alien to her everyday struggles, mired in hunger and covered in grime.
“Can I take one?”, Kanai asked the man, fingers lightly touching the stem. Scared to damage it.
The man stopped his digging and looked at the girl. Kanai deployed her most heart-rending puppy eyes, the one she reserved for kind looking girls in autos who will pull out their wallets if you guilt them enough. She looked intently at the man’s face, looking for some softness in his annoyed visage. Sensing a brief moment of weakness, she tugged at his shirt, smiling her best helpless smile.
The man sighed and looked at his bundle of tulips. Finding one that was slightly browning at the edges, he pointed it out to Kanai. And then went back to digging.
Gently pulling out the red tulip, Kanai grinned from ear to ear. She could not believe she owned this immensely beautiful, perfect thing. Burying her nose in it, she took a deep breath. Hmm…didn’t smell like much, but she didn’t care as long as it looked pretty.
She remembers taking it back to her tent at the construction site and planting it, mimicking the gardener's actions. She remembers it had wilted within the week, surrounded by all the heavy machinery and iron bars. She was sad about it until she found out from the didi that came to teach the site workers’ kid that there was a field full of tulips abroad. Kanai saw a picture of it on her phone and promised herself she would go visit that one day.
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