This Chennai-based photographer documents Tamil Nadu women with their hair sculpted with flowers

For the first time in a decade of photography, Navinraj Gowtman requested his subjects to show their backs to the camera. “He found it unusual,” says the Chennai wedding photographer, “but when I assured him I was obliged to take a good picture.” This was in 2020, when he was covering the popular Kuvagam festival in Kallakurichi. Most of the women he was shooting, in their early twenties, had their hair decorated with flowers.

Naveenraj was rewarded with a lively picture that also told a story. This created the first picture of what he would call the Poochoodle series. In the two years that followed, Naveenraj began to pay special attention to women’s hair with flowers, especially in rural Tamil Nadu. “I used to shoot them wherever I went on assignments,” he says.

“Festivals are big events in the villages of Tamil Nadu,” says Naveenraj. “Everyone is dressed up, and women don’t forget to wear their brightest outfits, that they complement their hair with a strand or two of flowers.” It can be any variety, such as yellow-orange kanakambaram (cracker flower) or even Philippine violet, popularly known as December flower.

Some women feel full only when they step out of the house with flowers in their hair. photo credit: Naveenraj Gowtman

As Navinraj documented the practice, he began to read literature on the subject to understand it. “I had many questions, the important question being ‘Why do women wear flowers’?” After two years of shooting over 100 photographs, Naveenraj realized he didn’t need answers. “They enjoy it. Some women only feel full when they leave the house with flowers in their hair. I then stopped reading about the exercise, and decided not to focus on the ‘why. but rather to shoot something that was beautiful to look at, and that the women were happy about,” he says.

Naveenraj met women wearing some unusual flowers. photo credit: Naveenraj Gowtman

The Navinraj women were found wearing some unusual flowers, as opposed to the typical jasmine. “I saw how rural women did this with ease. He would walk behind a plant and his hand would automatically look for a flower and fix it delicately on its top or condai”, he says.

a little girl with two strings kanakambaram and a string of jasmine hung between its two strands; with another two bright red hibiscus flowers on top of her twisted top; A girl is sporting a sunflower on her ponytail… Why, Naveenraj has photographed an old lady in Jawadhu Hills with four different varieties of flowers around her condai (become). “Most of these pictures are of the interior villages around Chennai, Viluppuram, Tiruvannamalai, Madurai and Thanjavur,” he says.

Most of these pictures are of villages around Chennai, Viluppuram, Tiruvannamalai, Madurai and Tanjore. photo credit: Naveenraj Gowtman

Naveenraj also hopes to document practices such as the elaborate weaving of flowers at a peak. “It’s done on special occasions for teenagers or young women,” he explains. There are specific people who specialize in this, whose services are sought before the big day. “However, this practice is dying out,” he says.

Photographer Navinraj Gowtman | photo credit: special arrangement

Ironically, Naveenraj spends a lot of time shooting for the wedding, adorning the bride’s impeccable hairstyles with tightly clipped jasmine or even exotic flowers like orchids or gardenias. “His barber probably spends hours just to finish it neatly,” says Naveenraj. “But to shoot a simple ponytail with a random mix of flowers that a village girl hit with impulsiveness … it makes me smile.”