Q1.
I. You read about the shiuli flowers from the poem. Gather more information on unique flowers of India—where they are found, how they look, what smell they emit, and what the historical significance is, if any. [For example, Kurinji or Neelakurinji that blooms once in twelve years.] Add more flowers to this list.
Shiuli Flowers:
• known as Parijat, Parijata, and Harsingar
• revered and used for various ceremonial purposes
• release a sweet fragrance
• associated with numerous Indian legends
• bloom exclusively during the night
Answer
The book gives you the model: five short bullet points per flower, covering names · where it grows · how it looks · how it smells · why it matters. Build your list on the same four columns and it becomes a usable reference rather than a paragraph.
| Flower | Where it is found | How it looks and smells | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shiuli / Parijat / Harsingar (night-flowering jasmine) | West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, and across the plains of north and central India | Small white flowers with a bright orange-red stalk; a sweet, cool fragrance. Opens after dark and drops before sunrise, carpeting the ground white | The flower of early autumn and of Durga Puja; used in worship; the state flower of West Bengal, and the subject of many legends |
| Neelakurinji | The shola grasslands of the Western Ghats, especially Munnar in Kerala and the Nilgiris | Small bell-shaped flowers in dense purple-blue sheets over whole hillsides; very little scent | Blooms once in twelve years — last in 2018. The Nilgiris (‘blue hills’) are said to be named for it, and the Paliyan people once counted their age by its flowering |
| Brahma Kamal (Saussurea obvallata) | The high Himalaya, 3,500–4,500 m — Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim | A pale, papery, lantern-like bloom that glows in dim light; faint sweet scent. Opens at night | State flower of Uttarakhand; offered at the Kedarnath and Badrinath shrines; named for Brahma |
| Lotus (kamal) | Ponds and slow water throughout India | Large pink or white flowers rising clear of the water on a long stalk; a clean, delicate fragrance | The national flower. In Indian thought it stands for purity — rooted in mud, untouched by it. Appears in temple sculpture, in the Ashtapadi, and on the currency |
| Champak (champa) | The Western Ghats, the north-east, and gardens across India | Creamy-yellow or orange flowers on a tall tree; a heavy, sweet, almost fruity scent that carries a long way at dusk | Worn in the hair; used in perfume and in temple offerings. Named in the Sarojini Naidu passage on page 132 of your own textbook |
| Rhododendron (buransh) | The Himalayan slopes of Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim; also Nagaland and Arunachal | Dense clusters of blood-red flowers on a small tree; almost no scent, but unmistakable in colour | State tree of Uttarakhand and state flower of Nagaland and Sikkim; its juice is a traditional summer drink of the hills |
| Foxtail orchid (Kopou phul) | Assam and the north-east | Long drooping sprays of pink-spotted white flowers; a light fragrance; flowers in spring | State flower of Assam; worn by Bihu dancers in their hair, and a symbol of the spring festival |
How to take this further: add one flower from your own district that is not on any list — ask an elder or a temple priest what it is used for and when it flowers. A flower with a local name and a local use is worth more in this project than a famous one copied from a website. Note the source of every fact you write down.
Why the poem needs the shiuli in particular: Tagore could have written “the smell of flowers”. He did not, because a shiuli carries a season, a festival and a time of day with it — early autumn, Durga Puja, just before sunrise. One precise noun does the work of three lines of description. That is the lesson worth taking from this research: precision in naming is itself a poetic technique.