Mausam

What can a change in weather trigger?

A tirade of memories, a sense of longing or a stomach full of butterflies.

If life is an adventure and the call of the new keeps the wheels in motion, then a sudden change in atmosphere, a low pressure hanging over the Arabian sea, something very banal and scientific, suddenly carries the mind back in time and drops it at the edge of the balcony where many a cool evenings were spent.

This sudden onset of cool winds in the peak of the Indian summer brings me back here today, on my blog.

Although the weather is a most welcome respite and I have spent the evening taking long walks, sharing a cuppa, sitting outdoors in a cafe with south Indian filter coffee accompanied by soft puffed pasty, the heart longs for the familiar, to the city of my youth, my childhood and my home.

Bangalore is now a buzz word, beaming with pride and so much envy. In a country like India, it is utopian in many ways, and now home to so many Indians, who have their own version of the city they have made home.

But I do not refer to the shiny bars, the glimmering malls, the breweries or the shops that line 100 feet road on Indiranagar, nor the buzz of koramangala and the  high rises of the south.

I refer to the yellow tabebuia trees that bloom every year at the onset of summer. Especially the ones that line the road leading upto Windsor Manor. I have memories of seeing these trees in bloom from my days in school, early in the morning when riding  the school bus.

Or the soft pastel pink trees or tabebuia rosea that paint Cubbon Park into an image of romance, and urge you to take the diversion into the road leading into the park as you criss-cross across the city.

I reminisce the massive Jacaranda trees that line Mosque road and make you look up as you manoeuver your car in the traffic and park on the side to just enjoy the colourful canopy.

Or the magnificent Jacaranda trees in Domlur as you drive towards airport road. Not to forget the Pink cassia trees around the city or the gulmohar tress also known as the flame of the forest in east Bangalore, around Malleswaram and Sankey Tank.

The trees inside Jaymahal or the ones that line Ulsoor lake carpet the streets with flowers and when it gets too hot for the city, a light shower brings down the mercury and the city smells like the first blush of romance.

To rainy evenings and cool breezes….also a reminder to not pick the flowers, but let them be.

Darakht sochte hai jab, toh phool aate hai….by Gulzar

Transliteration

(Translation By Pavan K Verma)

Darakht sochte hai jab, toh phool aate hai
Woh dhoop main duboke ungaliyan
Khayal likhte hai lachakti shaakhon par,
Toh rang rang lavz chunte hai,
Khushbuon se bolte hai aur bulate hai.

(Blooms blossom when trees sink in thoughts,
With fingers smudged in sunshine,
They carve their emotions on swaying shoots,
Weave the words, painted in shades of colours,
Speaking with the fragrances, they then intimate us.)

Hamara shook dekhiye….
Ki gardane ki kaat lete hai
jahan koi mehekta hai koi

(And see, in the name of desire,
We prune it off its stem,
the moment its fragrance reaches us.)