Let's get back to our childhood. We were asked by our mothers to pluck fresh flowers from the gardens to decorate rooms. This was a common practice in our childhood. We enjoyed flower plucking and our mothers enjoyed decorating them in different manners.

Visiting guests and other family members enjoyed the beautiful smell and fragrance of those fresh flowers. In sum, flower was a source of ecstasy and entertainment.

Now, let's come back to the present. These days, an empty flower vase, may be made of crystal or Chinese ceramic, is the chief attraction of a corner or centre table in a room. On occasions like birthdays and marriage anniversaries, we forget to take flowers for our dear ones. But we hardly forget to bye costly presents (and it would be unwise if I don't add here that these presents are mainly evaluated with their money value only). This is very upsetting.

Sometimes teenaged girls and women sell flowers on streets. This is their main income source and you will be astonished to know that these beautiful flowers are sold at a very cheap price and most of the buyers are foreigners. I think we should be ashamed of ourselves. Question is, who should be blamed for it -- change of our taste or what?

However, thanks God that we still do not hesitate to decorate our wedding-rooms, cars of a bridegroom, etc. with fresh flowers as we seldom forget to take fresh flowers to the Shahid Minar and the graveyards.