a Dash of ash ...and a Dot of silver!

...to enliven a beautiful pink saree. Taking respite and retreat from routine with hobby ideas. Fabric painting is a sure way of reducing weight. Yes! You don't feel like going into the kitchen at all!
It is an ideal off-season occupation. Not only for me. Even for the farm women. It could be a good source of non-farm income for them and we can support them by buying/marketing! After all, such goods are not as perishable and as bulky as their farm produce!

Yet another edible wild plant ...

I came to know of this just by accident. It is none other than our bright pink flowered coral vine. It's tubers are edible!

Its common names include Bellsima, Chain-Of-Love, Confederate Vine, Confederate-Vine, Coral Bells, Coral Creeper, Coral Vine, Corallita, Coralvine, Dilngau, Flores Ka'dena, Hearts On a Chain, Honolulu creeper, Kadena De Amor, Love Chain, Love-Vine, Mexican Coral Vine, Mexican Creeper, Mexican-Creeper, Mountain Rose, Mountain-Rose coralvine, Mountain-Rose Coralvine, Queen's Jewels, Queen's Wreath, Queen's-Jewels, Rohsapoak, Rosa De Montana, Sandwich Island Creeper

Thanks to Google Books ...

...it helped me find the much required missing link, the taxonomic name. I only vaguely remember the Telugu name. Batani. But the term `batani' more commonly refers to garden peas and it has, as expected retrieved cookery websites. When I used bataani and flower it retrieved cookery websites which dealt with garden peas and plaintain flower used as a vegetable. But, there was one Google Book result - Biodiversity in India - which contained the term `batani teega'. Yes! that is the local name and when I searched with that term I landed on its scientific name - Antigonon leptopus, the key to the wealth of world's literature on the plant in question.

The mysterious gate and the bright pink flowers

In an attempt to practice `substitution technique' (the one mentioned in TMWSF book and elsewhere, I turned to the Table Calender with Thomas Kinkade's paintings. This one was gifted by my sister years back. (kaam aata bolke!. I am spending minutes (hours?)getting myself diffused into the landscapes (lighscapes? for he is the Painter of Light).

The next day as usual when I went into the balcony, I noticed something new! New not because it wasn't there before, but because I noticed it anew. It was an Iron gate, exactly like the one in one of Kinkade's paintings,that too in the same angle as it was in the painting. But of course the similarity ends there.

I imagined planting beautiful creepers and shrubs near the gate. Showing this picture could I motivate those human pests, the children living in the park, to take to gardening. In case I gain some escape velocity to get myself to that spot and address the children, what plants would I recommend. Not something from the horticultural exhibitions. It has to be a wild one, to be sustainable. I thought of Clitoria ternatea with its beautiful wild blue flowers. Then I remembered the bright pink flowered creeper smothering the vacant plot adjacent to my sister-in-law's house. This has been my favorite plant during my childhood. I know it's name. It starts with A and it has letters n, t, ...h? No..

But I wasn't sure if it could be propagated by cuttings. I felt miserable. The much talked about `knowledge' is the limiting factor!