It is day two of the (wo)man-animal conflict, and I have just finished kicking the little green frog out of the kitchen who has been jumping over my feet and jeering at my nail paint. I love animals so long as they stay in their own space but when they start invading my territory, I shall not tolerate it. Lizzie the chipkali, who lives behind the kitchen cupboard is glaring disapprovingly at me with black beady eyes from where she lurks near the light bulb, hunting around for some breakfast bugs. I glare back at her and pouring myself a big mug of green tea that has brewed during the amphibian war, walk out into the garden.
Easier said than done. Just as I open the front door, I get splattered by a spray of rain drops that the pink Madhu Malti blossoms drooping over the doorway have collected during the night and are now dunking me in, in a burst of early morning madness. I laugh goodnaturedly (I’m not really as bad as Lizzie thinks) and step out, shutting the door in their face - dodging the spray niftily this time. It has rained while I was sleeping. The musty smell of damp earth wafts down my nostrils and mixes headily with the aroma of the Darjeeling tea. There’s a slight breeze that is carrying with it the feel of the snow up in the mountains somewhere far away in Himachal and bringing to Ferozepur the kind of coolness that tingles your skin but doesn’t really make it erupt in goosepimples. It is also carrying snatches of deep resonating gurubani from the gurudwara in the Cantonment and though I don’t understand a word of it, it lulls me into a state of peaceful contentment. My slippers sink into the grass that needs a lawn mower sometime soon but will do for now. A red-beaked flashy green parrot swoops down and mouths something that sounds suspiciously like an expletive and then wings its way to the bamboo thicket near the road where it hangs upside down from a slim stem and swings in the air. I know the defeated frog has been blabbing already and raise my mug of tea at the parrot, hoping it falls.
The wind is lifting the corners of the badminton net (where Saransh sometimes plays a friendly evening match with his friend Rahul) and trying unsuccessfully to wrap it one more time around the poles. It is rustling through the delicate-leafed bamboo thicket and making the red canna lilies growing along the sides tip their faces up in sheer pleasure. The rude parrot who has finished his acrobatic display without dropping off is now trying to gnaw off the end of a shoot. “Hope you choke!” I tell him politely and move to the kitchen garden, where three long green cucumbers lie lazily amidst the yellow flowers. A lone ladyfinger is showing me the finger from its perch on a shoot; a big hairy-leafed Brinjal plant is silently promising that where there are flowers there shall soon be purple veggies who shall battle from the side of the animals. “I shall eat you much before that,” I think aloud and move on to inspect the wooden poles that Prakash, the slightly eccentric Sikh sahayak with us, has tied into a rough square shape, bit like a football goal post, for the bottle gourd climber to climb on. It has only just sprouted but I know that it will soon curl around the edge of the pole closest to it and climb up like Jack’s beanstalk taking it one loop at a time. I bend down to sniff the tiny white rain-dunked mogra flowers blooming happily from a big red mud pot and try to hold their sweet fragrance in the curve of my nostrils and my mind for as long as I can. It brings with it a nice flashback from childhood because jasmine used to grow in our garden in GC Lines, Agra Cantt. It also takes me back to the hostel in Delhi where many, many years back I used to wind a string of jasmine bought from a child on the road in my hair and go to sleep listening to Jim Reeves heartbrokenly telling his girl: “You’ll have to tell your friend there with you, he’ll have to go”. Once again I marvel at how memories link up with smells and music just like DNA and genes link up with our chromosomes. (Well, yes! I was a biology student before I switched to writing)
The twitter of the birds that fly in a boomerang overhead heading for who-knows-what destination, the gurubani carrying over the wind, the crunch of the grass under my toes, the fragrance of the mogra, the spray of the Madhu Malti blossoms mix in an intoxicating punch that can lull me to meditative state if I let go for even a second. It is one of those moments when you feel at one with the universe and though you’ve heard it first from Stephen Hawking in the cold computerized words of particle physics, you know it is much more romantic than that. The grey rain clouds overhead that will dunk me in a shower of water if I don’t move in - in time, the flowers, the birds, the bees, the butterflies, even Lizzie in the kitchen and the moss green frog I had that ugly spat with – we’re all made of the same stuff. The same atoms, dear girl, as Chooah Sir (affectionate abbreviation for Chauhan), my physics teacher from St Patricks would say. When one form perishes another one comes to life. So does life or death, winning or losing matter? Only if you want to think really small. And no, it doesn’t to me. Not at this perfect moment, at least.
“Chaudah number ki school bus chali gayi kya?” it’s a worried Dad asking the Army fatigued Sikh sentry at the gate. A frowning kid in blue school skirt and white blouse, clutching a big bag and water bottle is standing alongside. Simba, the handsome Golden Retriever, just back from his daily morning walk, stands there for a while and wags his thick tail in sympathy. It seems she has missed the bus. Daddy rushes home to get the car. It’s back to the weary business of living. I rush for my bedroom and retrieve the laptop from where I last dumped it between the books in the bedside drawer. I can hear Alzeimer’s knocking and I must share this morning with you before it goes right out of my head. And I can’t really wait till I meet you next, because who knows, it might just be as a rain cloud or a dull green frog somewhere. And then, I’m sure, we’ll have something more interesting to talk about.
chipkali: lizard; gurubani: voice of the guru; mogra: jasmine; raat ki raani: queen of the night flowers (cestrum nocturnum); Chaudah number ki school bus chali gayi kya?: Has the number 14 school bus left?
Easier said than done. Just as I open the front door, I get splattered by a spray of rain drops that the pink Madhu Malti blossoms drooping over the doorway have collected during the night and are now dunking me in, in a burst of early morning madness. I laugh goodnaturedly (I’m not really as bad as Lizzie thinks) and step out, shutting the door in their face - dodging the spray niftily this time. It has rained while I was sleeping. The musty smell of damp earth wafts down my nostrils and mixes headily with the aroma of the Darjeeling tea. There’s a slight breeze that is carrying with it the feel of the snow up in the mountains somewhere far away in Himachal and bringing to Ferozepur the kind of coolness that tingles your skin but doesn’t really make it erupt in goosepimples. It is also carrying snatches of deep resonating gurubani from the gurudwara in the Cantonment and though I don’t understand a word of it, it lulls me into a state of peaceful contentment. My slippers sink into the grass that needs a lawn mower sometime soon but will do for now. A red-beaked flashy green parrot swoops down and mouths something that sounds suspiciously like an expletive and then wings its way to the bamboo thicket near the road where it hangs upside down from a slim stem and swings in the air. I know the defeated frog has been blabbing already and raise my mug of tea at the parrot, hoping it falls.
The wind is lifting the corners of the badminton net (where Saransh sometimes plays a friendly evening match with his friend Rahul) and trying unsuccessfully to wrap it one more time around the poles. It is rustling through the delicate-leafed bamboo thicket and making the red canna lilies growing along the sides tip their faces up in sheer pleasure. The rude parrot who has finished his acrobatic display without dropping off is now trying to gnaw off the end of a shoot. “Hope you choke!” I tell him politely and move to the kitchen garden, where three long green cucumbers lie lazily amidst the yellow flowers. A lone ladyfinger is showing me the finger from its perch on a shoot; a big hairy-leafed Brinjal plant is silently promising that where there are flowers there shall soon be purple veggies who shall battle from the side of the animals. “I shall eat you much before that,” I think aloud and move on to inspect the wooden poles that Prakash, the slightly eccentric Sikh sahayak with us, has tied into a rough square shape, bit like a football goal post, for the bottle gourd climber to climb on. It has only just sprouted but I know that it will soon curl around the edge of the pole closest to it and climb up like Jack’s beanstalk taking it one loop at a time. I bend down to sniff the tiny white rain-dunked mogra flowers blooming happily from a big red mud pot and try to hold their sweet fragrance in the curve of my nostrils and my mind for as long as I can. It brings with it a nice flashback from childhood because jasmine used to grow in our garden in GC Lines, Agra Cantt. It also takes me back to the hostel in Delhi where many, many years back I used to wind a string of jasmine bought from a child on the road in my hair and go to sleep listening to Jim Reeves heartbrokenly telling his girl: “You’ll have to tell your friend there with you, he’ll have to go”. Once again I marvel at how memories link up with smells and music just like DNA and genes link up with our chromosomes. (Well, yes! I was a biology student before I switched to writing)
The twitter of the birds that fly in a boomerang overhead heading for who-knows-what destination, the gurubani carrying over the wind, the crunch of the grass under my toes, the fragrance of the mogra, the spray of the Madhu Malti blossoms mix in an intoxicating punch that can lull me to meditative state if I let go for even a second. It is one of those moments when you feel at one with the universe and though you’ve heard it first from Stephen Hawking in the cold computerized words of particle physics, you know it is much more romantic than that. The grey rain clouds overhead that will dunk me in a shower of water if I don’t move in - in time, the flowers, the birds, the bees, the butterflies, even Lizzie in the kitchen and the moss green frog I had that ugly spat with – we’re all made of the same stuff. The same atoms, dear girl, as Chooah Sir (affectionate abbreviation for Chauhan), my physics teacher from St Patricks would say. When one form perishes another one comes to life. So does life or death, winning or losing matter? Only if you want to think really small. And no, it doesn’t to me. Not at this perfect moment, at least.
“Chaudah number ki school bus chali gayi kya?” it’s a worried Dad asking the Army fatigued Sikh sentry at the gate. A frowning kid in blue school skirt and white blouse, clutching a big bag and water bottle is standing alongside. Simba, the handsome Golden Retriever, just back from his daily morning walk, stands there for a while and wags his thick tail in sympathy. It seems she has missed the bus. Daddy rushes home to get the car. It’s back to the weary business of living. I rush for my bedroom and retrieve the laptop from where I last dumped it between the books in the bedside drawer. I can hear Alzeimer’s knocking and I must share this morning with you before it goes right out of my head. And I can’t really wait till I meet you next, because who knows, it might just be as a rain cloud or a dull green frog somewhere. And then, I’m sure, we’ll have something more interesting to talk about.
chipkali: lizard; gurubani: voice of the guru; mogra: jasmine; raat ki raani: queen of the night flowers (cestrum nocturnum); Chaudah number ki school bus chali gayi kya?: Has the number 14 school bus left?
Madhu Malti
The mogra thats brings with it a flashback from the past. Flower pictures by Manoj Rawat
And this is the Jim Reeves song that the fragrance of mogra blossoms takes me back to
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