The battle of poppy and Suriya

How flowers of both species were caught in a crossfire between Armistice Day and Sri Lanka's Suriya-Mal Movement

- RAJESH KUMAR CHAUDHRY

NOVEMBER 11 EVERY year marks the anniversary of Armistice signed between conflicting parties of the first World War (WW I) - the United States, Great Britain, France, and its allies on one side and Germany on the other — for cessation of hostilities, with effect from the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of year 1918.

Commemorations of the Armistice Day anniversary initially focused on honouring the fallen soldiers of WW and the return of peace. After World War II, many countries extended the focus to include personnel of their armed services who lost their lives in two World Wars and also the other conflicts. Over a period of time, member states of Commonwealth of Nations adopted the name “Remembrance Day” while, the United States in 1954 changed the name to “All Veterans Day’, later shortened to Veterans Day.

An interesting aspect of memorial services associated with Armistice Day tributes is the custom of wearing a red poppy flower (Papaver rhoeas) in honour of fallen soldiers and veterans. People would wear it during the remembrance period, which can be from the last Friday in October until November 11. As the story goes, in 1915, a Canadian army doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, wrote his famous war poem, In Flanders Fields, following the devastation he witnessed on battlefields in Ypres, Belgium. The poem describes the delicate red wild poppy flowers that bloomed where more than a million soldiers died during WWI. It begins with the lines:

…In Flanders fields, the poppies grow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago, We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields...