Tulips' fragrance enchants audience at Jaipur literature fest

Energetic and adventurous. These two words describe the 71-year-old British Anna Povard who is a gardening correspondent with The Independent. She spoke at length at the ongoing literary festival about her tulip journey, the most exotic flower after orchid. The author of The Tulip describes how the flower spread across the world including Europe and America, from Central Asia. She is besotted with tulip and can speak for hours on this unusual topic.

Her flight from Delhi was delayed by five hours. But, Povard was hardly fatigued by the journey. Introduced by Pradip Krishen, a self-taught botanist and a tree-lover, she began speaking as soon as she arrived at the venue.

Often associated with Europe where the flower has been romanticised by way of paintings and poetry, tulip is actually an eastern flower. While researching for her book, the author took pains to travel to Kazakhstan, Greece and Iraq in search of her beloved flower. She also faced situations where she had to deal with Kurdish army and almost had an encounter with a fox. "The flower has some kind of intrigue in it which tends to draw you towards itself," she observed.

Povard also narrated an instance where she won a bid for bulbs of tulips at a Sotheby's auction at a staggering price. "I do not know what made me bid for it. But after that, for many days I and my husband lived on bean soup," said Povard.

Povard continued to hold the attention of the audience till the end with little-known facts about the tulip in minute detail.