Summertime

Finally, it feels like summer in the household. Up until yesterday I was busy with grading and deadlines and so forth. Now I feel like I am truly looking upon that summer break that we academics well deserve (!). The mind, which is suddenly free from the various tensions related to events of Early May, is exploding with ideas, and thoughts of flowers. It feels familiar.

On the last day of school, a bunch of us got super duper enthu and went around prowling the school grounds like maniacs. We wouldn't let anyone leave for home early. We would grab their cycle bars and make them get down and play. We would run around the whole school, sort of saying goodbye to everything.

We had a beautiful school campus with gnarly old trees and eucalyptus everywhere and this nice rose garden that was maintained by the folks at the college. Dad taught at that college, mum was doing her PhD and I pretty much had license to go everywhere anytime, and used the opportunity well.

My summertime memories are filled with flowers. Mysore fairly explodes with Gulmohar in May. You cannot turn a corner without having to stop and admire the deep red and yellow. In the part of the city where I used to live, every tree-lined road was beautiful beyond words. This is the time of the year I miss being in Mysore the most, really.

One year in college, I stayed back in hostel, foregoing the pleasures of home for a good solid session of GRE prep. It was hot as hell in Chennai, but that somehow was not such a problem back then (unlike now). I used to wake up in the morning and literally sprint out of my room to that little place between the library and our hostel.

My friend Amutha, who used to stay back summers for various purposes, used to write us letters about this wonderful flowering tree near the library. Physical letters on those blue inland letter things. I was almost spending that GRE summer for the pleasure of staring upon this tree, I think. My mouth in a wide smile, I would stare upon that tree every morning before heading to the mess for breakfast, and then to my room for word-list consumption.

This past week, as my eyes have slowly focussed on outside things, I have discovered so much. This is my home now. No doubt. I was running in Anna University few days ago and found this whole parking lot covered in soft pink flowers. Don't know what they are, but really awesome. I took two loops through the parking lot with a smile on my lips.

I look from the terrace of my new house and what do I see? Those spectacular yellow bunches. Laburnum are they? I don't know. They are the yellowest of yellow flowers I can imagine, hanging down like grape bunches and such a sight for the eyes, I have not seen.

My maid complains incessantly about my other yellow flowering tree. The one thats outside my current house. It spills its soft petals all over the top of my car and the entire compound area. She sweeps up kilo loads of it every morning and tells me 'Amma please cut this off' I am shocked but I smile and tell her I love the flowers and I just could not.

The Gulmohars are late coming to Chennai. Last year I only saw a good concentration of them in June. I was pissed off at that. Its called Mayflower for a reason, I wailed. Not the ship, I said. But this year, I don't mind. There are so many new and wonderful trees to admire in this city, that really, I don't mind.

Summer is surely upon us, and while I cannot avoid thinking about the flower-lined avenues of Mysore, there is much to be enjoyed in my new home, and I fully intend to do that... No, this doesn't extend to clicking pictures of these trees, I am not a good picture-taker. You have to make do with my words. And references to obscure Janis Joplin song titles.