If you’ve been sighing helplessly every time you spot a pond peppered with colourful lotus during a drive to the countryside, it’s time to bring some of the magic home.

Well, plastic replicas swimming in a bowl or petridish is little consolation, but a closer look at floating flowers with in-built droplets of water on them inspires you to trade some of nature’s wonders for modern-day convenience.

Made of a special silk that makes artificial plants and flowers look almost real, floating flowers are available as single pieces, in packs of twos and fours and even in petal form. The colours are bright and vibrant ? pink, yellow, green and violet.

RACK RAIDER

• What Floating silk flowers • Where Shoppers’ Stop, Forum • How much Rs 95 to 245

The fist-sized single flowers will sit pretty in a bowl of water, by themselves or in combination with other flowers. For a more Zen-like ensemble, take a medium-sized glass bowl or petridish. Place a few seashells and corals at the bottom, fill with clear water and float the flowers.

There is no discounting the beauty of real flowers in this apparatus, but if you are one of those harried urban people, you’d have to make do with the artificial varieties we plucked for you.

Smaller flowers and petals add colour to a cool pool party in summer. Float a few candles as dusk descends and watch the magic circulate?

Picture by Rashbehari Das