Where have all the flowers gone?

The brilliant flowering trees are the visible signals of the annual change of season, from hot, dry, dusty weather, to cooling showers of rain. Rain which washes the scorched black hillsides and flat country sides, causing grasses to spring back through the baked earth, and on the hillsides, in addition to the brilliant flowers, new green leaves bursting out again.

That before December we may be cursing the rain is not important now. We will have to deal with the damp and the flooding and the landslips when they come, but for now the rains are welcome, cooling, ripening events. And while it has always been so, the fact is that we are developing and sharing a deeper awareness and appreciation for it, and maybe many of us who, when we saw the beauty in our trees, could not exult and share the ways we do today, so all admiration tended to be suppressed? I mean, just a few years ago how could you share the beauty of a Yellow Pouis in full bloom? By the time you took the film to be developed, and printed, and then published or shared it with anyone, all the flowers would have gone, fallen, faded and turning to mulch.

Today, what we see, we share— now for now! We share our experiences “live”, and this means that many of us, too busy sometimes to have seen the beauty around our lives, are awakened by others sharing of the Nature’s Delights which surround us—and have always surrounded us.

I firmly believe that the new media, the instant information, is awakening the reality of beauty surrounding us, the beauty which we were too busy to absorb, or too cynical to acknowledge because we were not sure how others felt about it.

And as we awaken to these feelings, a sort of latent discovery of great beauty all around us, we learn to love our land, just a little bit more than before. When we hear outsiders exclaim in wonder over a sight we had always seen, but accepted at less than face value, our self esteem and pride grow too, even if just a little. These are our trees, our flowers, our joys to share with the whole world, and the world looks in wonder and we become proud that they grow right here, in our land.

But the blooming is so brief, that our joy and wellbeing often passes too quickly, leaving no sustained emotion. Suddenly the blooms are a thick carpet—gold or pink— below the naked branches of the tree, and joyous are the May or June Brides who can have their photographs taken on one of these carpets! But within a day or two, the flowers all dry up, lose their colour and disappear. This annual event, the blooming and the shedding of the flowers, embraces a period when our young people, even our young children, are called upon to blossom forth and show what their education has done for them, so far in their lives.

Whole families stress to get their children—from little ones right through university—successfully through the exams they must sit at this time of the year.

This is where our children are taught stress. And most survive and grow in their new schools, new settings that may not have been their choices. But some, those who excelled in the exams, like flowers bursting forth, are publicly acknowledged. And they will grow to flower again at the new school until it is time for more exams, more stress and choices. Some will repeat this process, into universities, but many will seek work after completing secondary school.

But where have all these Flowers gone? Do we know how our scholarship winners have done, or are doing, over the years? There would have been careers built, approaching retirement now, over scholarship awards since Independence.

Do the scholarship winners at “eleven plus” win the University Scholarships, or do different flowers bloom? And how many who go abroad to study return home? This is not to question the motives of anyone, for truth be told, coming back home is a sacrifice right now, especially for bright, forward-looking graduates.

Looking at the state of our society, it seems clear that most of our f l o w - ers are blowing away, to b e t t e r lives in different l a n d s ? How can we call t h e m back?