Rain from Another Time

So I've been told I should enjoy the last few days of the bright sunshine in this city. Apparently Pune monsoons shall soon cloud the sky and take away the heat and singing brightness. And while the days make us all wish the Man Up There would install a gigantic air conditioner to take care of our late morning commutes and midday outings in the sun for meetings, evenings are something of a makeover the city as been through every single day of the summer I've known it to possess.

My intern co-copywriter here at work tells me Pune rains are nothing short of charming. I'd like to see how he means - considering the prospect of the bright blooms and all the tree lined roads being washed clean does sound inviting to me at least. And the carpet of Gulmohars on the ground in their first haul will be nothing short of jaw-dropping for me, considering I've been going on and on about it.

Umbrella called for from home on my parents' visit tomorrow, and rain shoes too, I'm all geared to witness my first monsoon in this city. I was telling Indu the other day, that though I've been around for almost five months now, the place hasn't yet lost it's novelty for me. Of course I keep meeting new people, constantly visit new eateries, new experiences never fail to confound me. But, Indu said something I'll remember just the way Neel's and Hitanshu's words have always stuck. She said, "A place isn't old until you've seen two cycles of all its seasons."

But I reckon Rain in any city is special. while cleaning it up for all to see its crevasses and minutest details in radiant hues, it brings more than respite to parched land. And of course, who can ignore its romance?

To its young and young at heart, it brings yearning. Another kind of thirst. The endless want for the sheer touch of another body. The warmth of a beating heart under your reeling head. The guard of an arm around your shoulder that holds so tight you are assured the most peaceful slumber. A torso to embrace so tight, all the ghosts underneath your bed and all your closeted skeletons vanish in fear, trembling, just as you are, in anticipation of the variety of manifestations his affection will assume.

To the hopeless romantic, it brings to fore that incorrigible feeling of loving without even an object of affection. A comfort for this lifetime. The need for assurance of a crooked reluctant smile. A shoulder that never tires of a hand resting on it when riding pillion. A voice whose granular velvet will always command respect.

One's inability to step out at will, or unwillingness to wade through the puddles and muck are much like shackles to surrender to forever; the bursting-at-seams need to serve and yet find emancipation, to be possessed and discover freedom, to worship and simultaneously turn deity.

Written in the last minutes of waiting outside the board room at a Nationalised Bank rebranding pitch

In the ante room of the board room of Bank of Maharashtra, two ad agencies sit in cold comfort, to borrow a Pink Floyd phrase, waiting to wage a war.

Two women have parked themselves on the two-seater sofa right opposite from where Swati and I have perched ourselves. Leadership representatives of the rival agency resemble watermelons wrapped in gunny bags. Competition is stiff. Our top boss is almost like the human twin of the alien dog-like creature from John Carter.

Busy on their smart phones, it would be interesting to see a Mario Miranda cartoon inspired by the trio. Like two pigeons perched on a live wire and brooding under their breaths as to how best not to look as fat as they do, as two slender young 20-somethings steal furtive glances at them giggling at least internally if not dying of roaring laughter.

The unconscious pout and feathery hair-do are getting you nowhere near the pitch, m'darlings. The John Carter dog's too large a presence in the local advertising market.

Of course, about these two young ladies, the less said the better. One, unprepared for any sort of formality whatsoever, in her pistachio green denim capris and creased sleeveless tunic with vermilion specs and not even an attempt to look presentable. The other, fairly traditionally turned out, yet any hint of professionalism clearly missing from the picture.

The sidekicks are adequately unsuitable to be present as well. Already as though out of skin, discomfiture stricken faces. Clad in struggled formal clothing, both, at extreme ends of their 20s and the size scale, would rather fill dandy hosiery and denim containers than be bogged by the stuffed shirt formal wear - garish gray and boring brown. The rival side is worse off though. The sloppy assistant with his wannabe goatee looks like the worst piece of jewelery at a kitschy corner store in Shaniwarwada.

On the whole, we present adequate variety for visual humour to the client - dressed boringly in their Safari suits and tapered shirts. This is all I can handle this morning man.

Dil Gulmohar

What is with this city?! I’ve visited Pune so many times across seasons, but this is one phenomenon I’m yet to come to terms with! Gulmohar trees. Tonnes. All in bloom. Like a wild forest fire. Everywhere I go! Office, home, drive to the outskirts, commute, East Pune, West Pune, all over the place!

And it's not the first time I'm obsessing over them. There used to be a line of Gulmohar trees outside my landlady, Gayatri's house in Lokhandwala, Bombay, where I lived last. I remember writing about trees in general too a couple of years back, in Bombay again. Yet I can’t get enough of them. And every Gulmohar tree in the city is drenched in the blooms. The skyline's as if set aflame! The leaves seem to have given way. As if in earnest surrender to the forces of Mother Nature.

Something about this flower makes my heart leap. Of course the radiant vermillion red-crossing-saffron would as-if burn up anybody’s vision, but there’s more to it. They seem to have erupted almost overnight one day in the middle of last month. Suddenly all the buds burst open to sprout that flaming orange.

When I had just moved to this city, it was the bougainvillea, then there were the purple-flowered trees (whose name I evidently still don’t know), and now Gulmohar. If you were to walk a random by-lane in any part of this city, it will not be just grey buildings sans any natural façade that accompany you. there will always be trees. Traditional ones. Ashoka, Neem and Gulmohars. Also some Orchids – the large lavender flower variety.

The Gulmohar near my office!

But coming back to those flaming Gulmohars, there is one right outside the gates of my colony and another, about fifty feet from my office - quite visible from our parking lot, with a strategic grey background of the Citiotel's plasticky exteriors at the back, framed between a garage and an old house in which runs a nursery.


Flora interests me - for those who haven't noticed yet. Not just agriculture or horticulture, or trees or gardening. Leaves, petals, barks and branches, tendrils and ariels, dry leaves and new ones attract me. They tell me I'm alive. They acknowledge my presence. That I see them. Them, in their details. In their element. Even whilst constantly judged as someone who awaits that big moment, a gigantic canvas, to show appreciation. They give me heart.