A Tribute to Lagerstroemia

In the green hush of my backyard, where sunbeams sift like poetry and birds compose morning hymns, there stands a radiant being—Lagerstroemia  the Queen’s Crape Myrtle. With her clustered blooms of deep pink—soft as silk, luminous as coral—she reigns not by command, but by charm. There is nothing loud about her, yet she arrests the gaze. There is no flamboyance in her stance, yet she stands with the quiet composure of a queen in retreat.
She is not tall, but she holds herself high. Her branches, modest in girth, stretch outward with a benevolence that reminds one of open arms, of generosity, of a tree that gives joy without asking for it. The flowers themselves are like messages scribbled by spring in a delicate hand—crinkled, ephemeral, and profoundly moving.
Is she of this soil, I wonder? Or an honoured guest from elsewhere, one who has made this land her home?

Botanists tell us that Lagerstroemia —native to the Indian subcontinent and parts of Southeast Asia—has long flourished in humid tropics. In India, she is known by many names, वनज्योतिष्मती, ताम्रपुष्पा, और सिद्धपुष्पी and some more. In Tamil Nadu, she appears in temple courtyards and palace gardens as Kadamba Mallikai. In Ayurveda, she finds mention too: her bark is said to have cooling properties, and decoctions made from it were once prescribed to soothe fevers. Like many plants from older times, she lives at the intersection of beauty and use, aesthetics and healing.
And yet, it is her sheer emotional presence that moves me most. She seems to embody the idea expressed in Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara:
"मृदुलस्निग्धमसारश्च सुरभिर्मधुरः सुखः।
श्रियं वहति वासन्तिः सस्मितं वनराजिषु॥”
(Spring brings fragrance, sweetness, and delight; its grace smiles gently upon the groves.)
Indeed, this shrub does not merely bloom—she smiles. She smiles upon passersby, upon gardeners who barely notice her, upon bees that linger briefly, and even upon the tired eye that seeks colour in the middle of a dusty afternoon.
There is something quintessentially feminine in her bearing—not in the reductive sense of decoration, but in her quiet strength, her resilience, her readiness to root and rise, wherever planted. Like women who cross seas and cities, only to transform unfamiliar spaces into havens of warmth, this tree too has adapted to every corner she is offered, making exile indistinguishable from belonging.
Tagore once wrote: "Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings while the dawn is still dark."
So too does this shrub believe in light. She bursts into bloom even before summer fully awakens, announcing hope before certainty arrives. 

To stand beneath her is to feel the world grow a shade kinder. Her blossoms do not preach, yet they teach; they do not demand, yet they uplift. In her, I glimpse a rare balance: of rootedness and openness, of colour and calm, of stillness and soft celebration.

(Uday Kumar Varma is an IAS officer. Retired as Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting)