Red-hot Summer days

Have you heard Summer shout?
"Red!", she hollers as she paints Mumbai and my garden in every hue of that colour .
A fiery, incandescent, scorching, tropical red. Blazing hot, in-your-face loud. Bristling, boiling, vibrant, thrumming, oh-so-sensuous red.

Starry days are made of this. Fiery ixoras blaze their way to the spotlight in the summer garden. Burning, searing, fulminating.
"Hey, the Sun is a star too", they tease.

Summer's own mascot, the Gul mohur, holds sway now. Gaunt, barren canopy-tops are now an explosion of molten hues igniting the clear Summer sky.

A hint of green feathers its way but Gul mohur leaves in Summer are at best a walk-on role. Late to appear and hardly noticed. They'll have to wait their turn till the scarlet and crimson explosions burns itself out.

Hardly noticed, like this poor butterfly. Who would dare the glare of the sun to follow her antics now? Not me. My verandah is my sanctuary now.

The Jatropha is in its element now, though. The glaring, exploding, melting summer day is no dampener to its ever-cheery disposition.

Lobster claws or fire-sticks? I say blazing torch! Heliconias light up the furthest corners of my garden in a flash of impudent arrogance.
Burning their way to grab all attention from under a jungle of foliage.
Foliage? Does anyone actually notice any when the heliconia is fire-bright?

Glowing embers wrapped in a sheath of ice, the Bleeding Heart Vine masters the fine art of capturing a free-spirit. Have you ever seen a red more eye-catching?
But that's the name of the game. Summer's here to play, come who may.
And, until cooler days swing around, find a cool, shaded spot to watch the world go by.


(Did you notice I've changed the look of my blog a bit? Nothing drastic, just the typeface and colours. It looks fine on Internet Explorer but I found that it doesn't look so good in Google Chrome. How does it look on your screen? Is the text clear and easy to read? Please let me know, okay? )

Update : I've reverted back to the earlier Georgia typeface till I can figure out what is going wrong. If anyone has a clue, please let me know? I really liked the look of the Josefin Sans typeface (at least, how it looked on IE!)