The colours of Summer

Nothing ... absolutely nothing ... paints the vibrant colours of Summer in Mumbai even a fraction as much as ...
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(This is not a full-fledged post but rather, a link to another post, 'Mumbai : The colours of Summer' at my India-a-h! blog. I thought a lot of my readers here would enjoy the post too. So I decided to cross-post it here ... or rather, to lead you to it. Hope you like it. And take it with a large pinch of adventure and with the spirit of Summer ! )

A sensitive topic

Hush! Now here's something rather sensitive. Can you guess what this slightly pinecone-like thing will eventually turn into?

Okay, here's a closer look ... watch out for those thorns, though. They're among the meanest things I've ever come across... lethal weapons, indeed!
I love those first peeps of colour ... hot pink flashing through all that green!

Mimosa pudica, touch-me-not, sensitive plant, humble plant ... so many aliases for one tiny little plant!

Novelty plant or noxious weed, depending on where you garden.
In my part of the world, it has to be among the most stubborn, difficult-to-clear weed. Found almost all over coastal India, I've seen these little plants blanket just about every kind of terrain.

The feathery leaves that coyly fold up when touched, give it such a delicate, absolutely harmless appearance ( and its basketful of names).
Until one sticks a hand close to it ... ouch! All those wicked thorns can make you feel like you've been stabbed by a zillion stilletoes and had acid poured into the wounds!
Pity the poor gardener, then, who has to weed these deceptive weeds out of every garden patch only to helplessly watch just as many appear within days.

It was only after I moved to Mumbai where the mimosa seems to have been concreted out of existence, that I realised that maybe the mimosa does have its finer points ( I had always been too busy cursing it out for all the cuts and scrapes it gives anyone who gets too close, to see them) .
Such as, its soft, light as a wisp, powder-puff-like blooms. Imagine whole fields dotted with these candy-floss pink buttons set in feathery green ... see what I mean?
And those delicate-as-lace, quick-to-react leaves which give it the added attraction of being a plant which actually does something.

Which is probably why my 12-year old daughter, who after her first school trip to an organic farm, came home proudly brandishing her first plant purchase.
A Mimosa pudica!

Guess who came to dinner?

Imagine you're hurriedly walking into an unused room and as soon as you open the door, you see this.
'This' was a harmless Rat Snake but the fright it gave me must surely be reverberating through the DNA of at least the coming 3 generations of my family!

Rewind : A couple of months ago a crew of painters and their hangers-on had taken over my house. The destruction they brought in their wake still has me tearing my hair out. In one particular bathroom they ended up cracking tilework and leaving big splotches of white cement trying to patch up more broken tiles. In retrospect, their finishing touch must've been pulling out the drain cover and then casually placing it back without bothering to cement it down.
In any case, the end result was that it looked so bad that we closed up that room till we find the time to fix it up again.

The other day, I remembered that I had to check on some stuff there and hurriedly went in. Only to realise that something was not quite right. And there to my left, just 2 feet away was this very scared Rat Snake, obviously thinking the same thing! He had climbed up on the sink and was literally trying to climb the wall.
I freaked out! Now I'm used to seeing snakes in the garden and actually enjoy it (from a safe distance) but I have never ever had one of them actually inside my house. I think I was more startled because it was so totally unexpected.

It didn't really register in my mind that it was only a harmless Rat Snake but all I could think at that moment was there's a snake in my house and that's crossing all lines that we've drawn down the years.
In all my years of living here, they've never done that but preferred to stay in the garden, chasing frogs or rats or whatever else took their fancy. And I've been thankful to them for that. But it has always been "you stay in your space and I'll stick to my space" between us. So why had that changed now?

The answer to that was a big frog lying near the drain. It had obviously come up through the loose drain cover and the snake had followed it in. I wonder what he thought of this strange new territory ...
Anyway, our helper came in armed with a long stick and flicked it down on to the floor near the drain. The speed with which it zipped back down that drain was amazing!

Poor little snake! He had come in looking for a nice quiet meal and all he got was gatecrashing humans!

Of tigers, crows and handmaidens

Tigers are frolicking all over my garden these days. Tiger butterflies, that is.
The hotter days and blooming trees in Mumbai have something to do with that I think. Everywhere I look there are trees in bloom and an attendant cloud of butterflies and other nectar-loving insects dancing around them. They act almost besotted with the heady summer fragrance. Can't blame them!

This gorgeous Blue Tiger butterfly refused to leave the lantana bush alone. I usually have to chase and stalk them all over the garden to get a half-way decent photo, but here they were, cosying up to the lantana blooms mindless of who else was around.

Could this be the reason why?

The Common Crows are making their presence felt too. But then, they are rarely shy and don't mind intrusive bloggerazzi following them around.

This tiny little butterfly hides one of the most brilliant blues I've ever seen within its wings. At rest, no one would give them a second glance but like the other butterflies of the Lycaenid or Blues family, their flight is punctuated by brilliant flashes of the most vibrant blue from the upper part of their wing which is usually folded and hidden away.
Almost like butterfly Morse code!

Another Tiger, the Striped Tiger butterfly, loves the banana grove. I love its tiger-y colours and I can see where it got its name, can't you? What a contrast in their personalities though!
Isn't it amazing how much it resembles the Monarch butterfly?

I found this Striped Tiger hanging around the cashew tree which is in full bloom now. I've always considered the cashew flowers no great shakes in the looks department but the butterflies are mad about them. True butterfly magnets!

The cashew blooms also attracted this stunning Handmaiden Moth which has to be the most impossibly colourful creature I've ever seen.

Don't believe me? Take a look at her close up. And keep in mind that the camera couldn't capture the deep jewel reds and blues which look a bit faded here. This is one creature that makes you gasp in awe. And makes me thank my lucky stars that I have them around in my garden.

So were these butterflies the prototype for some of the most beautiful flowers? Or is it the other way around?

Springing into Summer

It was Spring just the other day, now it looks like Mumbai is leaping and catapulting into Summer. Or are we already there? It's hot enough for it anyway.
In any case, I'm luxuriating in the look of crimson-studded Red Silk Cotton trees lining my road. Bare-branched, thorn-lined, yet so spectacular!

Birds love them! I caught this one with his head buried deep in a nectar-filled flower.
I've read that these flowers are edible and are, indeed, favoured by tribals. I wonder whether I dare try one? hmmm....
( I must add ... these 2 photos are untouched by Photoshop or anything else, except for adding the watermark. So, yes, the sky is that blue and the flowers are that bright red!)

The teak trees are standing tall, freshly leaved (just love that fresh green!) and topped with huge crowns of flowers. Last year's seedpods seem to have escaped the attention of marrauding parrots so far but they have other things on their mind right now.

These parakeets love the vantage point of the still-bare gul-mohur tree... from here they plot and plan and conspire which cashew tree to conquer next.
All of a sudden they whoosh! up into the hot air, a voluble green cloud of loud screeches and squawks. Settling down in a quarrelsome, gossipy bunch to some serious nut-crunching while the cashewnuts are still green.

Spring it is, coos the hidden Koel, sending out lonesome, plaintive kuoooos in search of his mate. His call sends the crows into frenzy, scrambling to find the intruder, this doppelganger in their midst. And hide he must, deep in the densest branches with only his ruby-red eyes to give him away.

Pinks and pastels find their place now.

Now is the time for every bloom, bug and praying mantis to think of changing colour.
Before the temperature soars higher and sizzles everything into a shivering inferno of reds, oranges and everything tropical.

Orchids in winter

I was in the mood for orchids some weeks ago but my mind kept telling me, "it's off-season!"
Winter, or rather, as much Winter as coastal Mumbai gets, still had its grip on us .
It is never Winter as those outside the Tropics know it, yet those bitingly chill winds that roll off the back of the frozen Himalayas are cruel enough to kill or severly damage Dendrobium orchids and the other warm-growing orchids in my garden. I lose more than a few to them every year.
And what makes it worse is that I grow all my orchids outdoors so there is no shelter from those cutting winds. Especially for my Dendrobiums which are tied on to the trunks of various trees. Those I couldn't move even if I wanted to.

Then as I looked around my garden, I found first one and then another orchid in bloom ... good enough to satisfy my craving.
Leading the list was that absolutely gorgeous Dendrobium which had not one, but two spikes full of flowers (top photo).
Then there was this unusual yellow Phalaenopsis, speckled with hot pink.

I quite forgot that this is Phalaenopsis season in my garden! They like a temperature swing of about 10* to initiate spiking and it looks like they're quite happy with what they're getting.

This Phalaenopsis is relatively new to my garden. This is the first time that Phal 'Mini Orange' is blooming for me. I'm trying to picture it in a matte black ceramic planter .... mmmm!

Spathaglottis , one of my never-fail orchids. And a terrestrial, unlike the other epiphytic orchids. This is one of the few orchids that you can grow just like any other garden plant.

And the dwarf hybrids are just as pretty, if not more.

Then, there was this lovely Cymbidium. But I can't claim credit for this one. I must confess that I bought it in bud from a flower show that was on in Mumbai recently. Isn't it beautiful? It was way too expensive but worth every rupee for the sheer delight I feel every time I look at it.

And then, of course, I had this one stashed away in my apartment ... Phalaenopsis 'Winter Carnival' .
How apt!

Celebrating Spring

Holi hai!
Yesterday was Holi, the Festival of Colours welcoming Spring. The festival of exuberance, outrageousness and, yes, of mischief.

Today Mumbai is lolling in the aftermath of an overdose of celebration, trying to wash off lingering traces of colour from hair turned electric blue and ears dyed shocking pink. Executives struggle to cover up neon green noses and school kids scrub at violently purple fingers.

All the while reliving the fun of battles fought. Of clouds of coloured powder flung. And squirting water pistols, and hurling water balloons to *splatch!* so satisfyingly in a drenching burst of colour . Exuberance is the qualifying word on Holi.

How can I leave my garden behind in this celebration? Splotches of outrageous colour are making their presence felt here too.

From elegant mauves and lilacs

to stunningly regal purples,

and blooming in an explosion of fiery orange

streaming into a cool river of green

spilling over in a flurry of shocking pink,

glorying in the golden hues of the sun,

washing the day in passionate reds entwined with sulphurous yellows

trumpeting joy and celebration in brilliant hues

of bright cheery yellows

and deliriously happy sky-touching blues.

Whites and pastels have no place on Holi ... except as an invitation to transform them into heart-throbbingly pulsating colours of the brightest hues. It's celebration time !