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.

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.

Pondy Shondy III: Taking it in

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.


A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the holiday.

The thing to do is to pile up on the booze, because it’s cheap, and go see Auroville (which I refused to do) and buy Hidesign products and eat at Satsanga. If you love to stop and gape at anything that catches your fancy, you’d instead loaf till your legs say no mas! In the French areas. And eat when you hit upon an interesting café and plomp on one of the several seats along the sea side. Don’t touch the lentil concoction commonly sold on the promenade. It is boring.

The French fries and Café Dip ice cream at Ajanta, yes yes yum yum

Do make space for a genuine Italian meal at Corelli’s Don Giovanni, run by the jovial, always drunk and Camel smoking flirtatious Max from Bologna. The Ravioli pesto and homemade pizzas are a must try. You could also combine taking a stroll at Le Maison Rose’s knick knack store and binging on their French food. But a personal favourite was the fine dining set up at Le Dupleix. The tiramisu is to die for. Ahaan.

Or walk into, instead of by, the grand churches that may catch your fancy (photography allowed – the nuns will even bestow one of their pious smiles upon thee). One you may spot from the promenade, though you’ll have to get onto the back street. This is the church of the Capuchins (Eglise de Notre Dame des Agnes) with a rather interesting piece of history attached to it.

The Cathedral at Mission street

The defunct jetty is not open to only-women travellers

Perhaps you’d try to buy your way into the Port Trust jetty. The place is not open to only-women travellers, so make sure you find yourself an impressive bloke for the evening and then throw him over on your way back. Alternatively you could just get under! Walk all the way beyond Le Café and the back side of Park Guest House right in the corner, where a little path opens to the quay. If you’re too lazy to explore one of the beaches some distance away, this works perfectly.

Under the Banyan Tree

The Banyan - वड़, as in the name of my city, वड़ोदरा, has always fascinated me for being perhaps the most disheveled, yet giving tree. From the one at the University campus here and the two in the enclosure in front of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Halls for men, to the giant one in Pondicherry and the two at my favourite vegetarian Italian restaurant in Mumbai called Under the Banyan Tree, the Ficus Benghalensis has held my attention wherever I've had the pleasure, opportunity, good fortune to spot it.

As a matter of fact, I feel like a banyan tree right now. A young one. But not too young. My first few ariels have just reached the ground. Perhaps not strong enough to make another tree trunk, but they sure strengthen the one that already exists. So many use me for their purposes and stay on, but nothing thrives if I try to protect. I'm a shelterer, not a shield. Something about my core refuses to change. As if I would diminish if that core ceased to be. Am I complaining? Not quite. Because this too has its advantages.

Advantage.

Sometimes the word is so favourable, and at others, such an expletive.

And so, how is it useful to the banyan to be a shelterer?

It is that much harder to destroy it. They let it be. They allow new ariels to sprout and reach out. The branches spread eider and shade more. And eventually the table turn. There is a little bit of that tree in everything it touches. Those who have gained from it, those who can't fathom its use, those who attempt to break it down, and those who embrace it in return for favours rendered. To be hated is also an impression, an element of oneself planted in another forever.