By Satvik Bansal
Somewhere high up in the Himalayas, where the air gets thin and it feels like you’re touching the sky, there’s a flower that barely anyone sees. It doesn’t grow in your average backyard garden, and it doesn’t show off like flashy roses or sunflowers. It’s quiet. Mysterious. Sacred. And honestly, magical. That flower is called Brahma Kamal. If you’re from Uttarakhand or if you’ve ever been to places like Kedarnath or Badrinath, you might’ve heard of it. Maybe you even saw it once, placed in some temple, looking all papery and strange but still catching your eye and pulling your attention in some weird way.
But here’s what most people don’t know: that this flower is slowly disappearing. It’s going extinct. Like literally dying out. And barely anyone is talking about it.
I actually have a Brahma Kamal plant at my home in Jhajra, Dehradun. It feels surreal to say that because even people who live closer to the Himalayas might never get to see it bloom in front of their eyes. But every year, without fail, this plant gives us a single flower. Just one. And it blooms only at night. The vibe is unreal. You’re sitting in complete silence, maybe it’s 1 a.m., and suddenly this flower starts blooming. Slowly. Gently. Without a sound. No drama. It just does its thing. And by morning, it’s already starting to wilt.
That one night, though? It feels like witnessing a miracle.
The thing is, Brahma Kamal doesn’t beg for attention. It doesn’t bloom every week. It doesn’t last for days. It grows at really high altitudes, in super harsh conditions, where most plants wouldn’t even survive. It survives the cold, snow, strong sun, wind and still manages to bloom once a year. And just like always, we humans are messing it up.
People pluck it for religious rituals, for decoration, for “good luck”, without realising that once you pluck this flower, that plant might never bloom again. And then there’s climate change. The Himalayas are heating up, glaciers are melting, the rainfall is messed up. Along with that, the flower’s natural habitat is breaking down. Trekking trails, tourism, roads, construction, pollution everything is destroying the land where this flower used to bloom peacefully. It’s like we’re wrecking the home of something sacred without even realising it.
And the weirdest part? Brahma Kamal is the state flower of Uttarakhand. It’s got official status, even printed on stamps once. But what’s happening on the ground? Very few people know that it’s endangered. Even fewer are trying to save it. Sure, some conservation work is happening by the forest department and a few individuals are trying to grow it in nurseries, some experiments are happening at high altitudes, but it’s not enough. Most people still have zero awareness.
When I saw the Brahma Kamal bloom for the first time at home, I didn’t even realise how rare and special it was. But now, every year when I see it again, I feel this strange mix of happiness and guilt. Happiness because it’s beautiful. Guilt because maybe it won’t exist for the next generation. What if 20 years down the line, children only see it in an old photo or a documentary and say, “Oh, this flower used to grow in our state, but now it’s extinct?”
You can read about it in books. It’s mentioned in ancient texts too that it was used in religious offerings, associated with Lord Brahma, linked to stories of Lord Shiva and Lakshmana. But beyond mythology, science is just as crazy. It’s used in Ayurvedic medicine for fevers, infections, wounds, even brain and liver issues. Old mountain villagers still use it like a healing herb. It’s got spiritual value and medical value, both.
But what’s the point of all that if no one even knows it’s dying?
What I’ve learned from this flower is patience and humility. It doesn’t bloom for show. It waits. It survives in silence. And when it finally blooms, it doesn’t scream for attention, it just opens up for a few hours at night and, by morning, it’s fading again. No need for applause. No spotlight. Just quiet, sacred beauty. And I think that’s a big lesson for us all. Nature doesn’t always shout. Most of the time, it whispers. But we humans are so loud and careless that we don’t even hear it dying.
So yeah, maybe I’m lucky that I get to see this flower bloom every year. But that luck means nothing if I don’t speak up about it. It was actually one of my friends, Parushi Nayal, who suggested I write about this, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised how important it is to share this story. If you ever get to see Brahma Kamal in real life, don’t pluck it. Don’t touch it. Just stand there, stay silent, and let it bloom. Let it live. And if you really want to offer something to God, offer your protection to this flower instead of taking it away from the mountains where it truly belongs.
It deserves better. It deserves to survive. And honestly, we need to earn the right to witness something this rare.
(Satvik Bansal is Founder & CEO, The MultiMedia Store)
