Techie documents TN tradition of wearing flowers through photo series

While schooling in his hometown in the Tiruvarur district, IT professional Naveenraj Gowthaman used to see women in his village wearing different types of flowers in their hair. “It was a really beautiful sight to see women from my neighbourhood styling their hair with flowers grown in the garden. The flowers include shoe flowers, firecracker flowers (kanakambaram), crepe jasmine, marigolds, roses, jasmine, etc. A few years ago, I attended the Koovagam Festival, the transgender festival celebrated in Villupuram. There, I saw a lot of women wearing different types of flowers in the hair and that too in different styles. This gave me the idea of documenting about this cultural emblem of ours and started a photo series called Poochoodal,” Naveenraj tells DT Next.

Women wearing flowers were once a common sight in villages but Naveenraj notices that these days, even they are not keen on putting flowers. “Maybe, because of lack of time or interest. But earlier, women strictly followed this culture. When I started documenting this as a photo series, I faced some difficulties. Usually, I take photographs of flowers alone and avoid the face of the person. Some stare at me and ask many questions. Nobody has done anything like this and people are curious about my work. I explain to them about my photo project and they happily pose for photos. Sometimes, I ask them to share their thoughts about wearing flowers. One old woman told me: Ponnu na poo choodanum. Poo vekkaama yaaru iruppaa? Adhu dhaan azhagu. (Women should wear flowers. Will there be anyone without keeping flowers? The beauty of a woman lies in wearing flowers). Tamil Nadu is blessed with many seasonal flowers and we have to make use of it. Also, this way, we can preserve our traditional values and culture,” he adds.