As a kid I remember going to the Rose Garden, Chandigarh, and hearing stories about it too- how it used to be during my mom's time, winter picnics among the roses a whole ritual in itself. Evening strolls through parks were a tradition, stopping every two minutes to take pictures of flowers along the way. That's just what spending time there looked like. Sector to sector, everything was within walking distance, always. I didn't call my vacation best friend to make plans, I was asked to just walk to her house. We'd pass the same gulmohar tree we'd claimed as ours since we were four, red petals collecting on the pavement every May like it was waiting for us.

Some mornings it was a different walk altogether- my grandmother taking me to Sukhna Lake before the sun got too high, past beds of marigold and bougainvillea planted along the promenade, the whole path dressed up for no occasion at all. Or evening strolls where random parks were beautified every time I used to come back, new flowers in fresh blooms.

I still go back to versions of that walk. These days it's usually to the gurudwara near my sector, camera in hand, plucking a stem or two to carry home for no reason other than habit. I don't know what I'm trying to hold on to. Maybe just the version of the city where my friends and favourite places hadn't left yet.

Because somehow, the people who used to be a five-minute walk away became a scheduled phone call. That friend from that same sector now lives two flights away. My grandparents still live in the same house, and their small everyday moments- a good doctor's visit, a Tuesday that went well; all happen without me there to hear about them in person anymore.

So I started sending flowers instead. Not as a substitute, exactly. More like a stand-in for the walk I can't take anymore- usually an Intercity Bloom Box, timed to land on a Tuesday for no reason, something that shows up at their door and says I still know what day it is, I still remember, I'm still here even from far away.

That's the closest I've come to recreating Rose Garden for the people I love. Not the roses themselves, but the showing up.If you're far from home too, maybe a box of memories can be your version of that walk- flowers, the way Chandigarh always meant them.