The new view

It rains everyday. Sometimes in thunderous downpours but mostly in soothing lullabies. And when the dark clouds puff and rumble their way down, the coconut trees dance with a new-found greenness. For my green-deprived eyes, this is sheer visual poetry and much more when I realize that all this is happening when I'm still living in a big, bustling city. In India.
Of course there are the ubiquitous sky-hugging buildings too, that stand so assertively punctuating the green patch. Those rectangular dots of concrete, when strung together, that map the oxymoronic facade of this city. But on my side of the world here, unmindful of the cacophony of an always-on-its-toes city, the trees win. And so does the sky.

Monsoon, interrupted

Of late, I've been robbed of many of my favorite things - reading, blogging, watching the rain, to name a few. Thanks to work piling on heap upon heap, I've been away from my world for what seems like an eternity now. I tried, and not once, to come here and drop in a few lines, but every time the words would evade me. True, it's no fun editing academic stuff, because then all you are left with is finding flaws and correcting them. And it's supposed to stay so for a month more.
The only hints of newness that have stumbled across my way, other than one full day of sale-shopping madness, are these hues of green - the ubiquitous Hyderabadi haleem lacing the city roadsides in colourful, illuminated kiosks, and my potted palm that seems to be making most of the monsoons. At least someone's getting to enjoy the rains!

Indian summer, for real this time

Sunday, 2:00 pm. Hungry. Dash into the kitchen. Boiled noodles tossed with some quick, spicy stir-fried vegetables. Gobble it up. Run back to the air-conditioned bedroom. Read a little. Scribble some lazy notes. 5:30 pm. Hungry again. Oh, just make yourself a cup of tea and grab some crackers. Or may be, just water would do?! Even a walk to the balcony could prove fatal. Just stay inside. Till, ummm ... June may be?!

When in India, it's really hard to disagree with T.S. Eliot's take on April, but only as far as the first line goes. April is the cruelest month of the year and if anything can come close to or aggravate the agonies it unleashes upon us mortals, it's the following month of May. Funny now, and how very like me, to be remembering this vengeful season last year, in another world and almost at this time, all sloshed with nostalgia and heartache. The tricky concoctions homesickness and memory brew!!
When almost all my friends in blog land are singing odes of a spring tinted with cherry blossoms and azure days, I, in the tropics, have morphed into a sluggish ball of restlessness and edgy emotions. Like my Ma says, "It's all because of the heat!" That's right, whatever goes wrong in these two months, we have the weather to blame for. Whoever you call, since meeting friends and entertaining takes a backseat till the rains say hello, has got a bit of summer woe to share, the regular rigmaroles being the loss of appetite and dehydration, and how it's a nightmare to cook the simplest of meals in a sweltering kitchen. Although modern living does help one to a certain extent, one eventually has to get out of the air-conditioned cocoon sometime. And the monsoons are a long, long way from now.

The only element of cool serenading our home is provided by the opening fronds of the potted palm, perhaps the only living creature to brave the fury of the sun and to tell the tale as well. The new, nascent green just gets into the head spreading its cool glow to my parched heartland, and the dainty dance of the sun on the tender leaves somehow makes the scorching 42 degree Celsius appear less brutal. Another green star, this one is!

My green star

I had found you sitting abandoned, tucked away in the corner of a horticulture isle. You had no expectations, except the tag on your neck that read, "water once a week". This tempted me, your no strings attached demeanor. I brought you home and you seemed to love it. Sitting by the living room window, you feasted on plenty of unadulterated sun. The mountain air of the countryside suited you well. Plump and pretty, you soon outgrew your old container. Here's a guilty secret - I never really liked that brown thing much. So there you were, happy in your new home - green and transparent - just like you. Religiously, I would feed you, keep your home clean and photograph your blossoming loveliness. You were my green star.

They call you the 'lucky bamboo', the fate-driven mortals. But I had no expectations from you. I loved you in my own way, proud and attached. And every time we would leave you alone (sometimes for months) you proved my pride - you flourished and sang, all by yourself. With time you became self-sufficient and basked in the glory of a perpetual solitude, just like me. When we moved to a new place, I took you along and there you were, sleeping soundly in a zip-lock bag throughout the two-hour flight. Like me, you quickly adapted yourself to your new surroundings, irrespective of the jarring ugliness of the place. But there was the sun, and there was love. And they say love conquers all.

Then crept in the cruel winter with heaps of pompous snow. Undaunted, you kept a brave front and cheered me up every morning when the chill would seep into my bones, sawing them mercilessly. As all nomads must, we were on the move once again. And once again you battled the odds alone and thrived spectacularly.

Unfortunately, the winter was rather long and severe. This time when we returned, your smile had withered. You looked wasted, perhaps tired of keeping a constant vigil and being pretty at the same time. I don't blame you. To please, is a monstrous responsibility and one that often has wretched ends. But at the end of it I, too, had fallen into the smelly worldly trap of expectations. I hoped for miracles from you. Even when I left you deserted and alone, to rot in the filthy slimy water. How could one survive this continuous barrage of impossible expectations? You could, because you were mighty brave. Much more than I could ever be.

Thank you for everything, my faithful Greenness.