An Ode to Early November

 

Early November is the best part of the year for me. This part of the year is seminally fresh. You can see through the transparent liveliness. The river of time is slowly meandering carrying little buoyant waves. The early winter is so relaxed, playful and carefree in its pre-puberty days.

The roses sway in gentle cool breeze. In salubrious early November, the flowers blossom up fully, open up their self completely, then willingly scatter their petals without pain and suffering. They kiss the ground with as much passion as they blew kisses for the air. Look at them carefully, they greet you and acknowledge your presence with a fragrant smile.

Little pinwheel-shaped Parijat flowers carpet the yard in the morning. The small-sized tree has a distinctive place in Hindu mythology. The holy tree lets loose a fine drizzle of highly fragrant little white flowers as the sun peeks over a dewy, misty morning.

The dew-kissed marigolds are sturdy. They stay for a few days. In garlanded form, they make sporadic forays into mythology.

A skink crawls slipperily on the floor, sneaks under a flowerpot and bumps into a lizard. Both of them then run for their lives in opposite directions.

The loveliest roses are nourished by dewy nights, balmy sunrays and gentle breeze. I have enough flowers to sustain the little ball of honeybees. They have lost their orchards and gone are big honeycombs, so even a small ball of honeycomb is welcome. It’s better than none at all. The little ball of honeybees must be feeling in a paradise with showers of night-blooming jasmine flowers so nearby. They get busy on a very early breakfast. They are whizzing about amid booze and gossip.

The ground gets carpeted with white flowers under the Parijat. I usually collect them and put them in the flowerbed so that they don’t get trampled. I find it a sin to trample a flower. The flowers then become celebratory lunch for scores of little insects.

The spotted doves and the honeybees are very cordial neighbors. The lazy cat now sleeps under the tree. Most probably, he has seen the nest. I hope the bees will teach him a lesson if he troubles their docile neighbor. Sadly, the doves are very lazy in the nest-making art. It’s a poor, fragile, unkempt, clumsy nest. It’s situated at a perfectly reachable height, making it a treat for any winged or even earthly predator. Looking at their careless, almost foolish ways, I sometimes wonder how do they even survive as a species.

The banana flower cone welcomes all from the sweetest ones like butterflies to the stingiest ones like yellow hornets. Nature doesn’t mind it much because they take only as much as they need. The scarlet cone having nutritious sap is placed on the open platter for all to take their share.

There are earthworms in the garden. They are very near to earth, hence named as such. They are just a bit more conscious earth. The earth that crawls a bit. They crawl, die, decay and become perfect earth very soon.   

These are beautiful days. The dusk descends suddenly. A little group of scaled munias is raising a feeble ruckus—they cannot turn noisy even in their worst mood. A hawk is after one of them. Maybe it’s a young hatchling that is yet to learn the entire set of flying maneuvers or perhaps it’s an old one with tired wings. It dives into a clump of trees, followed by the hawk. I can hear a painful screeching sound. Most probably, it’s a successful hunt or a failed escape.

Camouflaged by the shades of the falling dusk, the lazy cat crawls up the tree very cautiously. The silverbills, tailorbirds and oriental white eyes raise a protest. The dove keeps sitting in its poor nest, believing itself to be invisible. It but flew away at the last moment as the cat easily crept up to the nest. The hungry cat reached the nest and got a crunchy early dinner. The dove kept mum at night but cried through the next day. But it turned silent by the evening. The tragedy was almost scripted beforehand given their lazy and slovenly attempt at nest making. It was destined that the cat would have a breakfast, lunch or dinner any time. Its early foray means that it had a small meal. Had it waited for some days, the food would have been feistier. But then they don’t think like we humans. They live in the present.    

Beyond the mainstream pruning and trimming, it may sound a sidelined, marginalized narrative but it carries its wholesome spiritual trail and healthy cultural pulse. Modern life is stacked from floor to ceiling, pushing us into musty corners of our own creation. The money-spinning fancy footwork, the mad scrambling for supercilious slice barely leaves any shelf space for little innocent smirks, casual banter and childish merry-go-rounds.