A Phool Mali youth connects with the gardening and agricultural traditions of her ancestors.
Geeta Vishnu Ingle

Me irrigating my family’s garlic farm in Pimpri Mali village, Maharashtra. Growing up in the Mali community, I learned how to cultivate and irrigate vegetables and flowers as a part of my tradition. Photo: Shalini Ingle
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What is common to honeybees and Phool Mali people? Flower gardens and collective knowledge! I am Geeta Vishnu Ingle, a twenty-six-year-old native of Pimpri Mali village, Mehkar Taluka, Buldhana district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. I graduated with a master’s in development from Azim Premji University. I proudly declare that I belong to the Phool Mali community, also known as Mali, a traditional Hindu gardening and florist community.
Phool means “flower” and mali means “gardener” in several regional languages of India. Etymological studies suggest that the name of our community was derived from the Sanskrit word mala, “garland.” We are often referred to as “Phool Mali” because of our traditional occupation in, and immense knowledge of, horticulture and flower gardening.

The Mali people have traditionally worked as gardeners and farmers. Photo: Ram Thakre
The larger Indian society relegates Mali people to being only gardeners, with a perception that our knowledge is restricted to gardening and flower cultivation. My own observations, personal experiences, and interactions with family and community members, however, helped me realize that we are much more than that.
Since my childhood, I have been curious about our community. Why did our community traditionally choose to cultivate vegetables and flowers as a profession? Why didn’t other communities show the same interest? These rather naive but important questions prompted me to have many discussions with my mother, Shalubai, and my beloved grandmother Chandrabhga Paraji Surushe, whom I fondly call Aajjimay — one of the key Knowledge Holders of our culture and community and the heroine of my story.
While I was working on this story, tragedy shook our family to the core. My grandmother died in an accident while walking to her beautiful flower garden. It is difficult for me to overcome my grief and come to terms with our personal loss. It took a while for me to muster enough courage to finish this story. But now I realize that sharing this story assumes even greater importance. My grandmother’s untimely death was a great loss to our cultural heritage, and I want to share her knowledge with the world.
My grandmother’s untimely death was a great loss to our cultural heritage, and I want to share her knowledge with the world.

My grandparents Paraji Surushe and Chandrabhga Paraji Surushe (Aajjimay) are the key Knowledge Holders of our culture and community. Photo: A. Dnyaneshwar
My granny told me a story about the origin of our community and ancestors. One day, Lord Shiva and his wife Goddess Parvati sat at Mount Kailasa in Heaven and talked with each other. Parvati told Shiva that she was bored and asked him to drive away her boredom. Shiva created a beautiful flower garden at Mount Kailasa. Parvati was extremely pleased with the garden, but they both wondered who would tend to the beautiful garden. So, they decided to create a Mali to take care of the beautiful garden.
Lord Shiva scrubbed his own body and created a doll from the mali (dirt) that dropped from his body. He breathed life into the doll, which came to life as a human Mali who was assigned to take care of their beautiful garden. Parvati and Shiva named the Mali man Mananda, and he started tending to their garden at Mount Kailasha. Seja, a close associate of Parvati, also came to help Mananda tend to the garden. Pleased with Mananda’s and Seja’s work, Parvati and Shiva decided to send them to Earth. Before descending to Earth, Seja and Mananda were married in Heaven with the blessings of Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva.
When they arrived on Earth, Seja and Mananda created a beautiful garden and started a family. They had twelve children, and every year the family celebrated Mahashivratri, one of the most important Hindu festivals observed in reverence and devotion to Shiva. Mananda would lead the Mahashivratri rituals, but things changed when their children grew older. The children grew jealous and fought their father for leadership. Disheartened, Shiva intervened and ordered the children to make their own individual jyotirlingas, or devotional representations of Shiva. Obeying Shiva’s order, the twelve children each made a jyotirlinga. These twelve jyotirlingas are now the main jyotirlingas located at the most important Hindu shrines across India.

Lord Shiva’s temple on my farm, adorned with hibiscus flowers. Inside is a Shivalinga, a symbolic representation of Shiva. The Shivalinga is believed to embody the essence of Shiva, representing the forces of both creation and destruction in the universe. Photo: Durga Khetre
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The Malis live across the northern and central states of India: Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, as well as the Terai region of our neighboring country, Nepal. The Mali community is divided into at least twelve hierarchical subcastes. The Phool Mali subcaste is one of them, and the other eleven are Haldi Mali, Jire Mali, Kachhi Mali, Mevada Mali, Kajoria Mali, Vana Mali, Rami Mali, Saini Mali, Dhimar Mali, and Bhadoria Mali. In ancient India, Mali people were hired by kings and emperors to take care of gardens in their forts, palaces, and estates. The brutal invasions of the Mughals during medieval times, however, and later the violent colonization of India by the Dutch, Portuguese, French, and British led to the downfall of many prosperous ancient kingdoms of the country — and with them went the demise of the most beautiful gardens in forts and palaces.
In ancient India, Mali people were hired by kings and emperors to take care of gardens in their forts, palaces, and estates.
Consequently, the Mali people lost their traditional occupation and slowly scattered to different parts of the country in search of alternative livelihoods. Besides adapting to whatever means to earn a livelihood, the Mali people also turned into warriors, especially in the Indian state of Rajasthan, where they are now referred to as Saini Mali.
In modern times, we are still referred to as Phool Mali in our native state of Maharashtra, but we neither tend to the heavenly garden of Shiva nor do we nurture the royal gardens of the Indian kings and emperors! My relatives and family continue to cultivate vegetables and flowers, and most of our community members still nurture the traditional knowledge and practices related to the cultivation and use of medicinal plants.

My beloved Swara, my cousin’s daughter, worshipping Lord Shiva in our community temple. Photo: Durga Khetre
Mali people have a unique ethnic identity with their own customs, traditions, festivals, rituals, values, and beliefs. One of our cultural practices is for women to wear a lugade, a traditional sare made of pure cotton woven exclusively for Mali women. It is draped in a “Nauvari sari” style, which is commonly found across rural areas of the Indian states of Maharashtra, Telangana, and northern Karnataka. The Nauvari sari allows women greater mobility for farm work, offering comfort and flexibility while maintaining traditional elegance in rural life. Mali women wear kumum (vermilion) horizontally across the forehead, and men wear a bandi (cotton vest) and dhoti (men’s loincloth) with a head turban. This attire provides comfort during labor-intensive farm work.

My neighbors Vishwanath Pandu Magar (85 years old) and Janabai Vishwanath Magar (75 years old) wearing Mali ethnic dress. In my village, the elderly people still wear our traditional clothes. Photo: Mangesh Magar
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Similar to other farming communities across India, Mali people avoid stepping onto farmland wearing footwear. For the Mali people, farmland is sacred and should not be stepped on with footwear as a practice of compassion and sensitivity toward our fellow living beings. Mali Elders say that we lose the ability to feel the ground and the plants under our feet when we wear footwear. If we lose the vital connection to the earth, we cannot feel the pain of plants crushed under our feet. For this reason, Mali Elders enter a farm barefoot so that they can sense the ground and feel the plants.
Similarly, my beloved late Aajjimay told me that we should not wear green and black clothes when working at gardens and farms. Green is the natural color of plants, and black is the natural color of the soil. When we wear such natural colors, birds, reptiles, insects, and other creatures may not differentiate between us and their natural surroundings, and they might be attracted to us.
For the Mali people, farmland is sacred and should not be stepped on with footwear as a practice of compassion and sensitivity toward our fellow living beings.
Once I asked my mother, “Why are women of our community sometimes not allowed to work on farms and in the house?” She replied, “Women usually suffer from abdominal cramps and pain when they have periods and at that time they need rest. And that is the main reason why they are discouraged from working on farms and doing household chores when they have periods.” She added, “Such an important traditional practice got distorted and turned into a negative custom of calling women impure during their periods and forbidding them to enter farms or doing household chores.” Aajjimay told me that this age-old custom was strictly followed by her generation but is no longer common.

Fenugreek, carrots, and cauliflower at my relatives’ farm. Photos: Ram Thakre
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Numerous conversations with my family members and discussions with people of our community made me realize that our community not only cultivates vegetables and flowers but also possesses an immense wealth of knowledge about the cultivation and use of medicinal plants.
If someone suffers from typhoid, they are given vida, which is a traditional medicine prepared by wrapping a few medicinal herbs in a betel leaf (Piper betle). The patient should be tucked warmly in a blanket and allowed to rest. Often, the patient will sweat profusely and feel better. It is advised that the patient should not consume spices, salt, and foods that are hard to digest. Women experiencing irregular periods are asked to consume dried fruits of Paras peepal (Thespesia populnea) to bring balance.
Our community possesses an immense wealth of knowledge about the cultivation and use of medicinal plants.
In my childhood, my cousins and I used to visit our family farm in Primpri Mali village on the weekends. As kids, we always enjoyed getting our hands dirty, watering plants, digging small potholes for planting flowers, and doing other farm work. Often, we hurt ourselves, got nicked or scratched, and our parents would apply some herbal paste made of plants available at our farm as an antiseptic. I used to suffer from frequent stomachaches during my childhood. My mom used to feed me roasted sagar goti (Guilandina bonduc, commonly known as gray nicker), and I would feel better. Once I had a severe whooping cough, and my mom prepared for me a traditional medicine of honey mixed with soaked blue rui flowers (Calotropis procera) and told me to take it early in the morning before brushing my teeth. After taking this remedy, I felt relief from the cough.
With the popularity of allopathy, however, the Mali people’s vast traditional knowledge of medicinal herbs is waning. Many are drifting away from traditional medicine, and some don’t even believe in it anymore. My late grandfather Paraji Surushe, Aajjimay’s husband, was a well-known traditional healer with a wealth of medicinal herbs and herbal preparations. I observed that his prescriptions often worked but also failed in very severe and acute cases. In times of failure, people were sometimes upset and infuriated at my grandfather, but this was rare. Our traditional knowledge of medicinal herbs is orally transmitted, but given the loss of popularity and acceptance, my grandfather did not pass on that knowledge to his kids, except for the knowledge of some generic traditional medicines. Unfortunately, his knowledge was never scientifically documented.

Marigolds, roses, and chrysanthemums are some of the flowers that are grown on Mali farms. Photos: Soham Ingle
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The traditional knowledge and practices of our community are almost extinct now. One of the main culprits of this loss is the younger generations abandoning our traditional occupation of gardening. It is wrong to blame them: there is very little profit and return for the hard work needed for farming and gardening. It is therefore quite natural for people to search for better opportunities. Most people now are not even willing to grow flower gardens or cultivate vegetables anymore.
Realizing that we may lose our precious traditional medicinal knowledge, I want to work to preserve it. I am committed to upholding my family’s knowledge by actively documenting my research in various forms. I will create a record of our heritage through journals, essays, and social media posts, ensuring that this wisdom is accessible for future generations. Furthermore, I plan to share this knowledge orally with my friends, family, and children within my community, keeping the tradition of storytelling alive.
I aim to preserve the Mali community’s traditions and ensure that future generations can benefit from the natural remedies and healing practices passed down through the ages.
The traditional medicinal practices of the Mali community were once preserved through folk songs and oral traditions. When I was working on this story, however, I searched online for my community’s folk songs, but despite extensive efforts, I couldn’t find a single folk song. This highlights the urgent need to conserve both the songs and the knowledge they carry. This cultural and medicinal wisdom is vital, but as it fades, so does a rich heritage. By creating awareness through this story, I aim to preserve the Mali community’s traditions and ensure that future generations can benefit from the natural remedies and healing practices passed down through the ages.
By writing this story, I am also contributing to a broader conversation, sharing the significance of my family’s knowledge with both national and international communities. This helps to highlight the value of preserving cultural heritage and the unique insights that come from generations of lived experiences. Through these efforts, I hope to inspire others to recognize and honor the traditions that shape their identities.
Support the Cause: Help preserve traditional knowledge by asking Elders in your community to share cultural practices and stories. Record and document their wisdom before it’s lost, and pass it on to future generations to ensure the continuity of our shared heritage.
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Geeta Vishnu Ingle is a twenty-six-year-old resident of Pimpri Mali village in Mehkar Taluka, Buldhana district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. She graduated with a master’s in development at Azim Premji University. She dreams that her community’s traditional medicinal knowledge will be conserved.