The yellow-coloured Indian laburnum, commonly known as golden shower, bloomed a week ago, brightening up the road I live on. There is also a profusion of the copper pod flowers like a tapestry of gold on the road. The haldi gulmohar, as it is also known as, was considered a good luck charm in your studies, if it fell on your textbook. The pink and white flowers of the rain trees are vying for attention in this burst of golden-flowered mornings in April. It suddenly dawns on me that Vishu, a festival in Kerala, marks the beginning of spring.
These past couple of weeks have seen you play out a part from Groundhog Day caught in a time warp, reliving the same day. I shake the thought off, dress for my morning walk. The time is 7.15 a.m. Zuma, our 18-month-old retriever is excited, happy, looking forward to setting out for his walk every morning. Our eight-year-old Messi, is excited too but will walk at his own pace.
They step on the haldi gulmohar flowers, with a spring in their step. In the U.S., U.K., Europe, Asia and many parts of the world, it is spring. A time of coming out of hibernation, opening the windows to inhale fresh air, gathering together in parks and beaches, celebrating this flowering time. Now all this in COVID-19 times seems distant.
“It would have been so pleasant now in Kent,” said my younger daughter who is in her final year of college. She was forced to abruptly return home in Chennai. The deep orange flowers of the African tulip tree are distracting me, so does the frangipani trees.
In Buddhism, the frangipani flower is seen as a symbol of renewal, of new life. Well, new life is surely the sign around, of tender new leaves, of fresh foliage, letting the dried-up leaves and branches disappear. The birds are around now, silence can be heard, the air is breathing freely, happy that people have paused in their homes. I remember the lines of a William Blake poem, Spring: ‘Birds delight, Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky, Merrily, Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year…’