Return of the Prodigal Monsoon

After days of playing hide and seek, the monsoons have finally returned in full strength again. After the initial drama of finally having reached Mumbai, the monsoons had inexplicably disappeared! Not completely, for I would often go out into the garden to find the ground wet but no one would ever have guessed otherwise that it had rained. So totally unlike the normal monsoon days! This was more like a "Spit and Run"
Today I woke to gray skies and cooler weather and clouds full of rain.
Glory be ! and Halleluiah! and everything else that follows...


What could be more natural than rain on an Umbrella Tree (Thespesia populnea var. acoutifoua) ?

And after the storm comes the lull when flowers shake the raindrops off their face. The flowers of the Umbrella tree are a bright yellow when open, but salmon-pink when in bud and when closed.





Meanwhile, taking advantage of the few days of sunshine, I had a surprise guest. A new watermelon (?) plant had sprouted and rambled over in a pot of curry leaves. I had dumped the seeds in the nearest pot after eating the fruit. This is becoming a habit with me.
If it is the one I think it is, then it should bear small but very sweet fruit. The projection over my apartment's kitchen window should protect it from excess rain.

That looks like the start of a new baby watermelon. Go baby, Go!

Also sharing space in the same pot is a radish, a couple of curry leaf plants and a Malabar Spinach. This looks like the start of the War of the Species. May the fittest survive! Actually, I've got quite attached to the watermelon so I think I'll save it. And I need that curry leaf plant... my curries depend on it. So that will be replanted. But that radish can go. I'm not too fond of radish.

I think I had also popped a few pine seeds but that hasnt made a peep till now. It obviously has better sense than me. Trying to get pine (or maybe it is spruce, I havent a clue) to grow in tropical weather!