Sprouts of this Deserted, Desertified Land

Classical Tamil literature of Pre-Sangam era, dating prior to 300 BC, talks about the shrubs of Aerva that loves to grow and fertilise desertified lands.

Strangely, it also compares the sexually challenged mind of a male homosapien to these barren lands and crowns him with its sprouts. He tries to lure the woman he craves for, but she rejects him completely. His mind runs amok and breaks all the cultural codes regulating sexuality.

Assuming himself to be at the verge of death, he crowns himself with the blooms of the desert cotton and decorates his body as a corpse by rubbing ashes allover. As he saddles himself on a "toy" pony crafted with thorny leaves of a Palmyra tree, his peers drag the blood drenched pony to her house.There he demands her, either to take his hand or to let him embrace death.

The story of Aerva does not end here.

The literature also talks about Aerva during the times of war. When the forts of the enemy are razed down completely, the victor male homopsapien celebrates the event wearing a crown of Aerva.

Over the crushed forts and the crushed women, blooms the crown of Aerva.

Dry and inhospitable lands are the magnets that attract Aerva.

When I visited Kanuvai checkdam a week after the southwest monsoon had set last year, my heart sank into these endless waves the desert cotton on the bunds of Sanganur stream.

It was drizzling.

The bracts of these Aerva javanica were dancing in the wind. As the drizzle stopped, a swarm of honey bees joined the flowers in play.

She was one of them...

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