Every lovely blossom is a custom made job, the perfumed mascots of Caprice, created by Nature on her day off, probably after a glass or two of honey mead. So, when we say we love roses, what we really mean is we like being sent roses, reflects Ratna Rajaiah

“The more, the better, has always been my motto.” - Elizabeth Taylor

I admit it. I am a sucker for roses. (And my bet is that most women are.) I know. It’s a bit like saying I love French fries or money, but there’s something about the damn things that is irresistible. Cleo (Cleopatra to you) used to routinely spray the sails of her barge with rose water and as one story goes, when she was in the process of seducing Mark Antony, she had her palace floors carpeted and her room filled two feet deep with red rose petals. And we all know what happened to Mark….

So women have surrounded themselves with roses in one way or another for centuries. To seduce and be seduced. Look at the way the petals are arranged in exquisitely complicated whorls; see how even the palest pink or lemon deepens mysteriously inside each whorl, hinting that it is hugging some enchanting secret. And at the centre, even when the rose is in full bloom, there is a core that never unfurls completely, tantalising you with the promise that there might be something more gorgeous inside. Something, the petals coyly whisper in their velvety tongues, that will have to be wooed and flattered (not to mention wined and dined) out into the open and even then, you may or may not get the full story.

Which means that when a man sends a woman roses, that’s roughly what he is telling her. That she is this gorgeous, irresistible, enchanting, elusive, sexy goddess-siren-nymph-babe whom he will follow to the end of the world, walk on hot coals for and will her his millions. Roses are roses. And as eternal a paean to our inner goddess they will remain, here’s the thing. Roses wilt. Diamonds, on the other hand, are kinda forever and we women are partial to this ‘forever’ business, especially since men aren’t. Which means, we love men and can’t imagine life without them but we trust them only when they put their mouth where their money is. So roses are lovely but when it comes to the crunch, I guess it will have to be what Dorothy Parker has to say on the subject…