SPRING NOTES!

Author: Gaurangi Maitra

Date: 2019-04-19

Imagine winter sublimating into summer without the preamble of spring! Almost every festival in the first quarter of the twelve month year celebrates the sun moving north, increasing day light hours, and the renewal of a 365 day solar contract. Life is incomplete without spring even in the tropics- it stands between cold (or cool) and heat (or hot) like a true diva who never prepares you for the unexpected. It is her birthright to create an illusion of slipping back into winter or that summer has arrived.  You completely understand why-“She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee, her dress has got a tear; She waltzes on her way to Mass and whistles on the stair ”.

Spring does make me wonder, “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?”, especially as I walk down this sylvian avenue between seriously academic buildings and the gloriously level playing field. The leafless branches of the Gomari (Gemlina arobrea)   cloud over head dotted with yellow flowers barely visible till they carpet the ground we walk on. Further down, the high rise silk cotton (Bombax ceiba)  is caught between absurd cotton bursts and cheeky young shoots and the neem tree (Azadirachta indica) is almost demure and self effacing with a crown of soft mauve blossoms. The last is probably an aberration where the legendary bitter efficacy of the serrated neem leaves is more famous than the ephemeral beauty of the flowers. The feet and wheels heedlessly crush the yellow brown gomari blossoms that fall on roads; just under a month ago it was the large cups of the silk cotton flowers in shades of red, orange or that dotted our roads. It is only on a holiday that the carpets are not disturbed by the zealous grounds men sweeping the tarmac roads clean of erring spring blossoms. In this high spring, academic and other pursuits are interrupted by the seeds of the silk cotton, cushioned in their soft parachute of silken cotton, falling like snow flakes – “a flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!” This germ through successive springs and summers will grow into the massive sky scrapers of silk cotton trees. No astronomical calculations are needed to tell us that spring like the rising sun, greets the east before the west. So, when I was in Delhi in the end of March, the silk cotton trees were still in full bloom- whereas in Tezpur, Assam the flowers had given way to the big cotton filled pods - a nod to 28°36′36″N 77°13′48″E vs 26.63°N 92.8°E .

And, suddenly, almost without warning, temperatures drop, winds and clouds race in, whipping up a tropical storm out of nowhere. To say there was a short cloud burst, or a sharp shower is to take away the heart stopping majesty, the emboldened provocation that enchant poets, bards and even the tender mango or coffee blossoms. And when it clears as suddenly as it arrived, you cancel the crisp smoking hot fritter with fiery chutney and garam chai order and ask for English tea with delicate cakes and sandwiches to be served on the glistening lawns under a rain washed, sun lit afternoon sky. But , the best was yet to be-   I watched spell bound as the red crown of the woodpecker* on the rain tree, glowed a translucent red when the rays of the afternoon sun passed through it – a better ode to spring I have yet to find.

·      We are revisited by the same Dinopium shorii we had met in our previous blog .

Photo details : Taken with Nokia 7 PLUS on Tezpur University Campus. The leafless branches of the Gomari (Gemlina arobrea) cloud over head dotted with yellow flowers that are barely visible till they carpet the ground we walk on.

Photo credit : Gaurangi Maitra

 

Tags: SPRING NOTES