Pink is in and whirligigs are go!

Trees bloom in pink at Richmond Park, 13 11 2012

The colour of the day is pink! Noticed this on my way back
from buying sparklers the other day. I took this picture with
the phone on my camera, so it hasn't really done justice to
the breathtaking wave of colour that caught my eye.

I'm not sure Mr. Krumbiegel planted these trees in particular,
but he was responsible for the variety of blooming trees
around this city that dress Bangalore in one colour or another,
all year around. Whenever I look at a blooming tree, I'm grateful to
Mr Krumbiegel for his lovely legacy to this city.

Mahogany tree at the Church of South India graveyard, 13 11 2012

More breaking news - the mahogany tree's "potatoes" have
 split open and their whirligig seeds are ready to catch the next
breeze. I love these seeds, and often collect the ones that fall
on my terrace. If I'm lucky, I catch our building's senior citizens
sitting downstairs on a bench after their evening walk, and
surprise them with a shower of whirligigs from the terrace above.

Epitaph.

When the last tree falls,
the only rain will be
in the eyes of suicidal farmers.
Their salty irrigation will make the crops cringe,
wither and die, and leave the earth barren.

But these empty fields will not be wasted.
They can be our graveyards,
and the tree stumps our tombstones.
Then one day when we finally connect,
when we ARE the earth,
perhaps something will grow again.

But none of us will be there
to witness that birth.


(edited and re-posted from 2010)

Personal autumns.

I was looking at a lovely post about autumn on 5 Precious
Things, a magical blog by artist Ruthie Redden, and it struck me
that in my life, I have never experienced the season of autumn.
In Bahrain, it was always either summer or winter. Here in
Bangalore, I have both those, plus a spring of sorts, and
a monsoon season. We also have wedding season and mango season
and several festive seasons whenever Christian, Hindu and
Muslim festivals somehow end up overlapping, and the whole city
seems to take a week off.

But no autumn.

Some of the trees here remember their heritage, though, and have
their own personal autumns. Irrespective of the local weather
they shed their leaves when they feel it's time. The mahogany trees
outside my window do it. Last month they decided winter is over.
Now they're getting ready for summer.

Their tiny, delicately fragrant spring flowers have given way to
these humongous potato-like pods,  which will soon crack open,
and send winged seeds of dark brown whirling to the ground.
And then, I think, it will be autumn. They set their seeds free,
giving them to the world, knowing that most will be swept away
or burnt, that few will ever birth into new life. And instead of
celebrating their personal autumn with yellow, orange, red or
purple, they simply drop their leaves. All of them. And stand tall
and naked, mourning with dignity through their winter. Only
for a short while, though. For the mahogany trees, spring comes quickly.

I have never thought about autumn much, perhaps because
it was a season I missed. The season that stands out for me
is winter. I despise the cold and the dryness. And I have
my personal winters, too, times of feeling stripped bare,
empty and vulnerable. But I never paid attention to
the personal autumns that must have preceded
each winter in my life.

What if there's a message in the mahogany trees' autumns?
What if they are saying to me:  winter is inevitable. Be like us. 
Let go of the past. All of it. Just let it drop away, don't linger, 
don't try and hold on to it. Don't try to paint it with colours 
of hope, cheerfulness, passion or regality. Don't let your heart 
linger over its beauty, or ache over its lost opportunities. 
Just let it go. The only colour for us is green, the colour 
of new life. Winter is inevitable, but so is spring.

It doesn't sound like a very cheerful message. But their winters
are the shortest I've seen, and then they are alive, again and again
and again. They create. They lose. They mourn. They never give up.

I think it is time for me to experience a personal autumn, a mahogany autumn.

Why we need trees.

We have innumerable reasons, but I'm sure this is one of them. Sometimes I look around me at the garbage strewn around, at the strays, at the unsmiling faces. Sometimes I'm down. And then I say to myself, "Look up."

 

(These are pictures I took one sunny Sunday afternoon in early March, walking home. These trees, and more like them, form a canopy all the way down my street).

(Edited 15 April 2014)

Tree #1's birthday present.

When I turned 42, I asked friends around the world to plant trees
for me, as a birthday present. I didn't quite reach my goal of 42 trees,
but it's nice to know that somewhere out there are trees growing
on almost every continent because of me.

The first tree from this  project was planted in my parents' garden,
a day before my birthday. It took three years, but on my birthday
this year, we discovered its first lime, ready to be plucked. 

My lime tree is nearly as tall as I am now (how quickly they
grow up!) and I wonder how the other trees are doing. I must
ask my friends to send me recent pictures. In the meantime,
if anyone out there would like to plant me a tree, please do!
Don't forget to take a picture that I can put up here. And if
any of you have "special" trees, planted in celebration of
a birthday or some other special occasion, I'd love to hear about it.

Trees to paper to trees.

I saw these three tree designs in a book on applique stitchery
and they looked such fun I couldn't resist giving them a try -
but remembering years of accidentally stitching my needlework
projects to my school tunic, I decided I'd be better off working
with paper and scissors. An excellent form of therapy for anyone
with packrat tendencies. I can now justify all those old magazines
that I Just Can't Throw Away.

Before the monsoon

There are days like this. When I feel dry, bare, buffeted.
All around her, the others still wear green; this tree is out of sync
with the seasons. She follows some other rhythm, some African beat
that only she hears. Her pods have been emptied of their cellophane seeds,
ransacked by wild parakeets and squirrels. When they fall, these pods
look like canoes. But though the skies are grey and the wind promises rain,
it lies, and so the canoes rot slowly in the graveyard at her feet.

P.S. This is an African flame tree that grows at the edge of the graveyard behind our terrace.

Plant me a tree!

This year, I turn 42, and I couldn't think of a nicer
birthday present than a garden of trees growing for me around
the world. Over the next year, I hope to find 42 people who
will plant and nurture a tree for me.

Here's what I want you to do:

1. Find me a tree: a sapling of any tree you think appropriate.

2. Next, find me a spot: a space waiting in your garden, perhaps.
Or a neighbourhood corner. Maybe even a large pot for your
balcony (some trees will grow in pots - though not as large
and healthy as those planted in the ground).

3. Take a picture when you plant it, and send me a copy
of the picture, along with a bit of information about the tree -
what tree it is, where you got it and how, why you chose
this particular tree, and anything else you'd like to say.
And in the future, at least once a year, send me a picture
with the tree in it, so that we can all see how it's growing.
You could also send pictures in different seasons, if you like.

4. Look after it for me. Let it grow as long and as strong
as it can, so that there will always be a bit of green for
someone who feels they may never see enough.

The last thing on my mind.

A few years ago, I was being rushed to Manipal Hospital in
a screaming ambulance early one morning, with a suspected
brain haemorrhage. Needless to say, I'm still here: the cerebral
irritation, though still a mystery, turned out not to be a haemorrhage
after all. At the time, though, everyone thought I was dying. I did too.

Lying in that ambulance, blacking out and coming to, over
and over, on waves of pain, the thought calmly came to me:
I think I'm dying. And: Shouldn't this be more dramatic?
But no, it wasn't. It was a quiet, oh-well kind of resignation.

I looked up through the window and saw treetops streaming
past as the ambulance raced me across town, and it struck me
that dying meant I would never see trees again. So I looked
and looked at the trees, trying to stay conscious and keep
my eyes open to take in as much of the green as I could -
while I could.

And then I lived! So now, I never ignore a tree.