The news this week from Delhi is good. Leaves are falling. As summers get closer, trees across the city have started shedding their leaves. If its windy, the yellowed leaves drop continuously in a gentle shower. By noon, roads are carpeted with a golden-coloured layer. Many leaves find their way onto the subway stairs, into ATM cabins and even into the open kettles of roadside tea vendors. In the evening, when office-goers reach the parking stands, they first must wipe off the dry leaves from their cars windshields.
Its basant, a happy time, says Hindi poet Ashok Vajpayee referring to the season. This is our last chance to enjoy cool weather in the open skies before the oppressive heat takes over. It is a sensibility not shared by all.
I associate falling leaves with melancholy, says Michaela Kreuterov, a Czech citizen who has lived in Delhi for six years. In my Europe, leaves fall in autumn, which is a kind of sad season because it heralds the coming of the cold, harsh winters.
In Delhi, its the opposite. The autumn, or pat-jhad, arrives after a short spell of spring, heralding the coming of hot, harsh summers. Soon the water will be scarce and sandstorms from Rajasthans Thar desert will be a daily torment. For a tree to survive in prolonged drought, it needs to shut down, says Pradip Krishen, the author of the magisterial book Trees of Delhi. The best way for it to do that is to drop its leaves and stop transpiring water.
Smelling a pink silk tree flower in the lawns of Humayuns Tomb, Raluca Sidon, a tourist from Bucharest, Romania, says, Im seeing it for the first time. It doesnt grow in my country. I have only read about them in books. It is her first day in Delhi. It is also her first day anywhere in Asia. The morning is sunny. In Bucharest, it is still very cold, about zero degree Celsius. There is ice on the streets and the wind is chilly, which is unusual for March. There is no sign of spring.
In Delhi, Raluca is finding herself in the midst of its short spring spell. Jasmine flowers are blossoming. The day temperature is cool, not cold. In the noon, there is a feeling that summers are around the corner.
Spring in Europe is very explosive, says Ms Sidon. When it arrives, ice melts and water in the nature starts to flow. Its like the blood coming back to the body. First you see the flowers of apple trees and cherry trees, and then you discover that leaves have started growing. A year ago in Bucharest, Raluca wrote in her diary:
The purple lilac is smelling fresh and bitter. The trees are in perfect state of youth. Thee leaves are as fresh as my one-year-old nephew Jacobs ears, transparent and soft. This spring is perfectly directed. Its beauty has no equal.
Watching the gardeners sweep away the fallen leaves from the grounds of Humayuns Tomb complex, Raluca says, In Romania, all trees shed all their leaves during the autumn. They become stark naked. Here in Delhi, the leaves are falling now, but not all the leaves are falling and not from all the trees. Its like as if this is not a seasonal thing but something that goes on all the year round.
Watching the leaves fall to the ground brings mixed emotions. I feel bad for those poor leaves, says Parveen, a sex worker in GB Road, Delhis Heera Mandi. They fall to the ground to be trampled upon by peoples feet. Thumri singer Vidya Rao whose apartment windows in Mehrauli looks onto the shrubby archaeological park compares the phenomenon to the cycle of life. Things are returning to earth, she says. New leaves will come. This is life.
Not all Delhiites are lucky to live within an eye-view of gardens or tree-lined avenues. I dont see any trees from here, says Pushpa Singh, who lives in an apartment in Vasundhra, a suburb beyond the last metro stop of east Delhi. But my tulsi plant in the terrace has shed its leaves.
What is lovelier still is that some trees that have gone leafless are now in full blossom. The branches of semal trees, for instance, are decked with thick pulpy red flowers. The strategy of trees in this eco system is to put out flowers first before the new leaves appear, says Krishen. This makes the flowers more conspicuous for pollinators. Birds are bad in smelling things but their powerful visual sense attracts them to semal flowers, which they help pollinate.
Picking up a dry leaf, the Romanian tourist says, In Bucharest I missed the sun. Here Im happy seeing it everyday. Walking towards a mango tree, she says, Delhis trees have so much life in them. May be because of the birds. I feel life in the grass too. Maybe there are snakes.
Although we are in the second week of March, Raluca, looking up at the blue sky, says, This is feeling like late August in Bucharest. What about Lahore?
Mayank Austen Soofi lives in a library. He has one website (The Delhi Walla) and four blogs. The website address: thedelhiwalla.com. The blogs: Pakistan Paindabad, Ruined By Reading, Reading Arundhati Roy and Mayank Austen Soofi Photos.
