Slow-paced pleasure of some silent moments

 The world around you changes once a babbler makes a nest in your garden. They are very assertive in defending their territory. I’m spraying water on jungle geranium as a kind of bonus gift to it because it has blossomed really well even in this heat. An almost permanent shade of the parijat above has worked in its favor. I water it twice a day and it has made the most of it. It’s a pleasant sight to look at its bulbs of soft pink. These are tiny clusters of flowers forming big laddoo-sized bouquets. It’s a beautiful pattern, almost exotic and challengingly intricate. It’s a decorously contoured, captivating flower, a visual delight. Each bulb comprises a cluster of small, tubular blossoms which densely populate the inflorescence. The individual flowers are very small in size, just measuring about one to two inches in diameter. But their beauty lies in unity, holding together in illumined integrity. They grow closely together and form a rounded shape, presenting the stunning visual impact of a single big bulb of flower. You feel proud to have helped in creating such blossoms. These are visually very interesting flowers having intricate streaks and patterns, carrying unique swathes of aesthetics. They look inviting with their exotic appeal.

As I sprinkle water over the flowers and the glossy green oblong leaves, inhaling the tropical aroma, a babbler has some serious issue. In my flowery reverie I have stepped near a little puddle of water formed on the uneven cemented bricks in the yard. It must have been drinking water there and I inadvertently disturbed it. There it starts with a long chain of tart, stinging words. If you have the lung power to out-babble them you can assert your rights. But I have to give in to this perennial dissenter. My mailbox is full of recent rejections so I am in no mood to fight. I try though, in slight irritation. I turn the water pipe in its direction and give it a mild shower to cool it down. But that makes it outright abusive. I simply move away, why get into arguments with foul-mouthed guys. It proudly hops and reclaims its puddle and takes sips of victory by turning its neck sideways so that its beak gets a slant enabling it to scoop some water with each effort. It looks even angrier with its side-long white-rimmed look. I move further away.

The wire-tailed swallow couple is sitting at exactly the same spot on the wire. It’s a love-spot for them. They take a view of the courtyard with a sort of miscellaneous muse.

I have minimized honeybee casualties by putting dry leaves and light dry twigs on the water surface in the bucket. After taking a tumble in the water most of them swim to safety to the nearest point.

The flower in the wall crack is facing the toughest test. It has shed its leaves as homage to the fiery summers, sparing just a few leaves at the top as a mark of life and its ongoing fight. I sprinkle a bit of water over the crack twice a day and that keeps it going. It has to hang on till the monsoons return. Just a matter of one moth I suppose.

The ants have made their hole bigger and there is a little heap of sand, the dredge of their mining effort, on the clean cemented brick where they have drilled a hole. All and sundry need a pucca house these days. It’s a busy world with cascading ambitions.

Curry leaf tree, the beloved culinary plant with aromatic leaves. It is laden with small, delicate flowers growing in clusters called panicles. Each panicle comprises numerous individual flowers densely populating the inflorescence. Each gust of wind results in a drizzle of almost countless tiny petals measuring a few millimeters in size. The florescence is so dense that despite a continuous drizzle of tiny petals still there is enough for the bees, stinging wasps and creamy white little butterflies to go feasting through the day. Tiny star-shaped individual blooms harken the sappers. They emit a sweet, gently floral scent that wafts with the winds and carries its sweet invitation.

Far away from the tumultuous trajectories of the bigger world, it’s my little corner crowned with an unadulterated halo; of little sounds and long silences; of rosy radiance and reverberating bliss. A little world taking me into the pools of seductive withdrawal. There was a time when I tried to fit into the piercingly gibberish mainstream. Very soon I realized that I am one of the fringe folks. And frayed, frazzled and fatigued, no longer able to bear the shadowy overtures of the thoroughfare, carrying sore stabs of the feeling of victimization, sobbing tempests buzzing in my ears, I walked into the embracing folds of my little private world. It healed the scars on my soul. Far away from fictitious championing, I just try to be my real self, a tiny self going in sync with small-small happenings in my tiny corner.