We think of higher things and beings only when we are down and out. This is one of the three lessons I learnt during a morning walk...
The seasons bring variety to my morning walk around Mumbai’ Five Gardens. The quality of light changes, new flowers splash across the branches, and different bird song filters out of the dense foliage
However, my eyes are usually lowered as I walk. This has little to do with my non-existent humility and everything to do with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s inability to lay and maintain a single level pavement. That and the inability of dogs, stray and pet, to keep their poo off it.
Thus it was that as I walked with downcast eyes, came upon a swathe of purple prose. No, call it poetry. The pavement and the road beyond it had been dyed like a royal robe, though not evenly Here, it was of deep rich hue, there, the fuchsia segued into a paler mauve. I marvelled over this unfamiliar beauty. The end-of summer breezes cover the pavements with the golden blooms of the copper pod tree, and the first showers do the same with the resplendent gulmohur, spreading out a red carpet which might be the envy of Cannes. But that recent morning, the night’s rainfall had changed the accustomed palette, it had brought down hundreds of jamuns .
And that’s how I discovered how many jamun trees there are in Five Gardens. I had never noticed them before. Now, as gingerly skirted the slippery purple, I looked up to behold the magnificent trees that had nestled this benevolence. A philosophical amble does not normally accompany me as I stride through this sylvan enclave, but this time I found myself pondering over the lessons that had dropped from those mystic branches. More
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment