About some exotic flowers and the person who grows them

It is very interesting how me and Padmaja met. It is probably what she calls as serendipity. We both were associated with a particular upmarket super market that was recently set up in January 2010. While we (All & Motley) were only registered as vendors for Fish and Shell fish and never supplied to this client as the market information was that the payments cycle is troubled, Padmaja, verbally contracted for a space in the store to sell her exotic flowers. Please read exotic in bold, italized, underlined and in capitals. She owns a brand called "Ohana" which is a very famous name in Bangalore as far as flowers are concerned. Her store and office are at the Leela Galleria next to the Hotel Leela Palace Kempenski. Imagine whose who of India and foreigners buying flowers from her.... like James Cameron.

One day i walked into this particular departmental store and there she was standing and talking to her staff. Even before i met her, i was a repeat customer of their exotic flowers so her staff told her about me. Naturally I was introduced to her. Padmaja is a US citizen and spent considerable amount of her life there and that is one common topic between me and her considering my stint in US, apart from her flowers. We met the next day for coffee and I unsuccessfully tried to persuade her that Hyderabad needs more of such wonderful flowers and gave her the references of all the 5 star hotel and mall contacts. I was expecting her to jump at the opportunity to grab business. I was wrong.

Padmaja never cared about that money that she had to earn paying bribes (which is prevalent in some hotels to get a flower's contract as a matter of fact any contract). In fact she never cared so much about money as much as what she cared about flowers. She went on sending flowers to the super market in Hyderabad, even though she was not receiving the payments. It is only later that I realised, that her business activity is more to do with her passion for flowers, than the money involved in it. She owns a farm in Bangalore, where she grows a lot of the flowers that she sells and some she imports. I asked her, why she was not pursuing her payment in a vigorous fashion. She said, she simply cannot do it. It is only after a very long pursuit and failed attempt to recover the money completely, did she stop sending flowers to Hyderabad. Needless to say, I miss those flowers terribly.

In the first week of August, I was in Bangalore on business and visited her home and store. It is only after I saw her home did I realise that cultivating and offering exotic flowers is not a business activity for her, but it is a way of life. The way the home is decorated, the articles she chose for the home, her garden, the trees, plants and flowers each one of them is a manifestation of the aesthetics of the person who manages them. That person's zest and passion for life and beauty. Just when I thought I have overcome one of the seven deadly sins namely,Jealousy, Padmaja made me feel terribly jealous of her and envious that I do not own a home like hers. What you need to be able to run a business like that is not just money or a robust supply chain of flowers. I guess it takes you to be a different person, some one who has the ability to appreciate the beauty of the flowers even when you are not making money on them. All though she never told me the reason as to why she supplied flowers to Hyderabad for so long even when she was reasonably sure that she would not recover the money, I have enough reasons to presume that, it is for those few customers who appreciated and bought her flowers.

Later I went to her store and was very happy to see her flower collection and display. Please click on this Blog post label to visit my Picasa web album. I am sure you would agree with me, that these are the best flowers you ever saw, unless you live in Netherlands.

Padmaja runs an e-commerce site at http://www.ohanaflowers.com/
You can order flowers and have them delivered to your dear ones.