The Gulmohar

There are times when we just see something or someone around us and our imaginations go wild. It maybe ordinary and natural or it may be something artificial. It may have been a mundane article or something which arouses our sixth deadly sin.

Something of the former was what I experience when I stayed overnight at a friend’s place to watch the late night soccer match. Yea Germany had won and I got up pretty late. My friend knowing my passion for bed-tea had got me a mug.  Sipping the delicious beverage my sight wondered out of the window.  And before me was dense foliage of a Gulmohar tree.

 The night earlier was quite wet and Bangalore had witnessed one of its heavier showers of the season. The earlier evening the tree was in full glow of the crimson blooms and today morning nothing but the bowed dark greens.

The beauty of nature

Does not lie only in the beautiful and bountiful

But matters so the thorns and dark clouds

As with flowers and sky so blue.

The ground below was blood red. Those handfuls who have never observed a Gulmohar flower should know that this particular flower usually grows in India during the summers. But the flowers don’t have a fragrance at all. Though the color riot they display in a sight in itself.

As I stood observing each branch and each leaf I tried to view it in one sight. And I was stunned at the effect.  

               

On his knees with his heard lowered

Not broken but certainly bowed

Bloodied ground lay below as a Persian spread  

Beaten but not lost nor afraid.

 Yes, I could relate the tree to an army general. Fighting against the torrents of enemies. Spears piercing through his shield and swords cutting through his amour. But fighting back even though he knows all is lost. And the ground below him all bloodied with flowers of his sacrifice.

This topic may be so out of the blue for a blog. But I am sure every one of you must have such imaginations. As children we have often tried to imagine ourselves as hero and ridden a fallen branch like a horse with a twig in our hand as sword. Or we might have lay on our backs and gazed into the blue sky trying to relate the fluffy clouds to some known shapes.

                Laying on my back and gazing into the blues

                I wondered the shapes and hues

                How the tides change or winds blow

                How fast oh… does time flow

And in the age where we see more of concrete jungles, the kids are glued to the artificial world of video games, the trees and the greens are like a fallen general, bowed but not broken.... yet.