Flowers, food and fun

The last Sunday of November is a very important day for a group of about 40 women in Chandigarh. For the last 25 years, they have been converging at the house of Gunita Gill, to admire her love's labour: chrysanthemums in a riot of colours and varieties of sizes, and even shapes. "Diginity", that's what this one is called, Gunita told some of the ladies who were in raptures over one brilliant big bloom.
Gunita is a clinical biologist who chose to give up her work at the city's General Hospital, to write straight from her heart in a language she loves--her mother tongue, Punjabi. Equally, she chucked it up to keep her beautiful home the way she wants it to be, with change being the only constant. Everytime you enter, there is something new, and it is always a piece of art, ethnic at that, from some part of the country. Someone once told Gunita that her drawing room reminded them of Pupul Jayakar's. For those who are not familiar with who Pupul is, she was the czarina of Indian arts and crafts, shaping the government's approach to art and artists during the days Prime Minister Indira Gandhi revived so many such crafts that would have otherwise died quitely.
All the 40 ladies are professional women--doctors, professors, media persons, officials and what have you. The binding factor is the love for simple sweet things of life--to positively appreciate and encourage the passions of the others, be it a block printed silk kurta or a phulkari, or a print framed and put up, or a little terracotta piece from somewhere. Equally, all will unabashedly enjoy what Gunita lays out attractively, and lavishly on her table. The menu, Gunita likes to believe, is the same year after year, as are the flowers. But to this, I say, yes and no.
There is invariably one new variety of chryasanthemum in her collection. When she had the first party in a two-room apartment's tiny balcony, there were about 60 pots.Now there are more than 2000 of them, and plenty on the beds, the baskets, and whatever else she can find around the place. Her keen eyes keep track of the new stuff that someone displays at the city's annual Chrysanthemum show. Gunita, however, never exhibits at such dos. There is an exclusivity that is zealously guarded by her, for these close friends.
She works on them round the year, and unlike most house owners, she does not supervise her gardener. She has him help her, simply as errand boys would. They are her babies to tend to, she will not pass that pleasure to anyone else.
Through all these years, she has a partner and companion in Manju Dutta, the Director of Dental Services in Haryana when she hung up her high heels a few years ago. Her passion for these flowers is matched by Gunita's , and towards this end, they are a twosome. Manju shows her flowers in a strip tease kind of a way-- very few people at a time!!
Gunita's party is always an all-female affair, with her husband Dr Amod Gupta, an eminent professor of Ophthalmology, relegated to his room on the first floor, if he is not out of town for a conference or seminar.Amod's own passion is uvititis-- the spelling may be wrong, but it's a super specialisation in eye. Gunita knows her chrysanthemums would not be nourished, without his help, but that won't make her change her mind about...

Like an addition in the flower variety, Gunita's dining table too has one or another surprise element. Today it was methiwale poori, with channa, in addition to the long list of goodies.
To sustain an interest in celebrating these blooms and the lovely winter that is kissed by the mountain breeze from the Shivaliks, for 25 years, through joint pains and the like is not easy. But Gunita does it with a smile. We have yet to figure whether it is for the love of us all, her friends, or the love of the chryasanthemums !! But who cares anyway !!