Valentine's Day messages are embossed on roses

Kolkata, Feb 13 (ANI): Courting couples and lovebirds here have found a new way to express their affectionate thoughts to their beloved ones on the occasion of Valentine's Day.

Thanks to 'Feelings Expresso', now they can have their Valentine messages embossed on a bouquet of roses.

These range from 'Love You' messages to pictures of hearts, cupid or even personal photographs, in fact anything under the sun, all embossed on the roses.

"Initially, we used to create just heart shaped designs. But now with our growing popularity and increasing demand, our concept has changed. Some people even request us to put their or their beloved's picture. So we also work as per the popular demand," said Pulok Majumdar, digitiser with Feelings Expresso.

From rupees 30 for a single rose bud to rupees 100 for a small bouquet, Valentines can convey their love messages. The messages or pictures can be sent by e-mail or delivered in hard copy to Feelings Expresso. The entire range of service is fully customised.

As Harit Ratna, owner of Feelings Expresso, said, "It took us over two and a half years to develop the technology for embossing flowers. This concept is based on tattoos. We thought if tattoos could be done on sensitive human skin then why can't it be done on delicate flower petals? So following this concept, our team finally found the way to impose digitised messages and pictures on flowers. Money was never an issue because of the good volume of investment."

However, Feelings Expresso has also tied up with outlets of the Future Group and Archies Gallery to supply bouquets embossed with some standard valentine messages.

The reason why roses are being used is because of its bigger and stronger petals.

Roses of different hues - from red to yellow, white to pink and several other hybrid varieties are currently being airlifted from Bangalore. However, Ratna has invested in land in Howrah district of West Bengal where he intends to cultivate roses round the year.

The popularity of Feelings Expresso has soared so high that it has already received orders for 25,000 roses with messages embossed for Valentine's Day. The company expects the demand to touch 50,000 by the time Valentine's Day comes round.

However, business is set to boom even post Valentine's Day with the Expresso team preparing to emboss Puja and Id messages, Diwali greetings, divine symbols, birthday and anniversary messages on the flowers.

From corporate logos to faces of celebrities - like that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, everything can be embossed on the flowers using this technology.

Meanwhile, Harit Ratna is confident that there would be no dearth of takers for this unique method of expressing one's love or any other thoughts close to one's heart and even formal greetings. By Ajitha Menon (ANI)