And you know how trees are, often silent and reliable, reassuring but ignored, like women in human society, till they suddenly burst in color, blooming and dripping their pollen, flowers, and nectar. Its then you notice them. So far just part of the green background, when they're in bloom I realise their names, or look them up searching the images of their flowers on Google lens or sending them to my mother who does that for me often. Almost every couple months, every season, some tree or the other is in bloom. The start of the year is often followed with the semal flowers, deep blood red in leafless trees painting the city alive. And when the last of them has been squashed underfoot and the tree starts to leaf out again one forgets which trunks and branches were that beautiful. Recently, on a rare April visit to sundar nursery, we discovered the Maharaja tree, two of them, only because they were in bloom flaunting their bright pink brush like flowers (resembling the plumage that decorates Maharajas' headdress) and littering them around the entrance; April is usually too hot for a sundar nursery walk and thus the ignorance so far. And today on my drop-bar-super-light-and-cool-new-bike ride I stopped to pick up and admire and later look up the flowers of the sausage tree (called Balam kheera) named after their phallic fruit.
I'm sitting in my balcony now admiring from above the white speckled red flowers of the gulmohar in front, and wondering whether the amaltas follows it in bloom time usually or whether the gulmohar overtook the amaltas this year. And how I admire and then forget the season of the silk cotton flowers and the yellow trumpet flowers and how I've been meaning to look up the two flowerless trees in the front garden for months now but because of their lack of flowers, I lack the urgency to admire, name, and appreciate them.
