The beginning of Summers

 It’s the burning first week of April. The short-lived spring is more of flowery symbolism, a very delicate metamorphosis, far more in allegory than substance. In future it will be remembered through the poetic approbation of sundry sensitive souls. Gusts of wind loop around with a thirsty probity. Once out of the winters, the roses have given their best. They had ravishing, oracular dew-laden smiles to fulfill their commitment to the short-lived spring. Now they get some respite at night. But during the day the 40°C sun soaks away life and smile from the roses that still try to keep their smiles. It’s a slow-burning pyre now and they lose their color rapidly, the petals get crinkled.

A few pots of petunias have unleashed a rainbow of red, pink and violet. They are lucky to be placed by a wall where they have to see through the scorching sun till noon only. After that there is shade and the sun-beaten, bowed down, drooping flowers slowly regain their smiles as the afternoon approaches. They recover completely at night to smile at their best, all fresh, and welcome me with innocent fresh smiles in the morning before the sunrise. The little sadabahar flower in the crack in the wall has welcomed spring with high spirits. It has grown taller to be around one foot and has a cluster of little purple flowers. The thin crack in the plaster is its lifeline. Acknowledging and honoring its formidable willpower to survive, I sprinkle a handful of water around the crack. It’s just enough to moisten its lips but it seems enough to help it keep smiling. For sure it looks happy in its little world.

I look solemnly as the short-lived spring gets sucked dry by the thirsty sunrays. One must have sympathetic eyes to witness the fading signals of the retreating spring. Three butterflies go gamboling in the air, flirting with the eddies as if out on a pleasure party, going to dine on a few discharmed, sun-ravaged flowers that still keep their posts for their patron season. These are creamy white butterflies. I hope it isn’t a naughty play—a colorful threesome demonstration. What is a butterfly, I ask myself musing over them. It’s just the air taking colorful wings and fly around in a form so that we can see it.

A ladybird has fulfilled its quota of representing the air. It’s an illustrious form of earth now—orange with black dots. It’s a beautiful pattern in the soil as I sit by it to pay homage to a life that completed its journey. Well, the dead need to be honored. I pick it up on a leaf and leave it to turn to common soil in a safe corner among the still remaining flowers.

These are the times for the triumph of ‘extremes’. As extreme heat builds up, the sunburnt roses give a sad sight. The hot wind swipes its airy hand and scores of dry leaves tumble down. A green ladybug also tumbles over. As someone who is trying to keep his eyes grounded for smaller things in life, there I find it kicking its legs in the air. All it gives him is a backstroke movement on the ground. It may look good in a swimming pool but on the ground this expert maneuver gives scratches on one’s back. With the help of a dead leaf—everything happens for a cause; maybe the leaf fell near the ladybug to avail the services of my fingers to save the little colorful insect—I help it turn over and there it goes showing its beautiful back and scampers into the security of some plants.

The ladybug has to be thankful for not being spotted by the forlorn magpie robin who goes flying restlessly in the locality. There is plenty of urge for love despite the heat. But there are more claimants (takers) of love than givers. No wonder there is a shortage of love which has come to acquire the shape of a commodity these days. The ladybug was lucky in having an extended backstroke swimming exercise on the ground because the garden magpie robin has been busy in fighting for love at that time. He is fighting with a rival. They pinned each other on the ground, locking each other in a wrestler’s hold so forcefully that they didn’t move at all for at least two minutes. They are lucky that a cat isn’t around otherwise the love game would be the end game. The lady in contention looks curiously from a distance. They are a couple, I think. Our magpie robin is unnecessarily trying to snatch away the rival’s girlfriend. It seems to be fed up with its lonely nights on the parijat tree and decides to fight for a better half at any cost.

The purple sunbird couple is usually seen flitting among the trees and plants in the garden with their prodigiously arduous chipping notes. They are extremely chatty birds and are impassively in pursuit of each other from branch to branch. Either there is too much love or too much domestic bickering between them. There is a limitless barrage of swish-swish-swish-swish notes, a kind of rolling ruckus that startles even the noisy tailorbird. I’m not sure whether the couple is adherent of the religion of love or advocate of husband-wife animosity. But these spurts of either anger or love cooings peter out after brief intervals. It’s very challenging to maintain either love or hate at an intensified, pointed peak. People get tired of their hyper-excitement and come downslope, mostly on opposite ones. I would say it’s better to come down the same slope with experience and an understanding that staying in the clouds is too much asking. Be realistic. Don’t drift away, just come down to the level plain. You won’t be alone at least. Coming to the birds, if it’s a quarrel then they are drifting apart after tasting the peak of togetherness. If these are love songs, let’s see how long they maintain the tempo.

The game of love unfolds on an unusual and inexplicable chessboard. The pawns, we humans and even animals, birds and reptiles, are shuffled around for hits and misses, for brief pleasures and long pains, by an unknown hand that sits on the playing seat with unremitting zeal, playing for both ends, being victor and loser both with the same sadistic excitement. Love: toughest in philosophy to understand and simplest in feeling. As of now, it seems so simple in lovely companionship of a mynah couple. The top end of an electricity pole is their place of dating and the time is late in the evening when the sun has lost its sting. It has been a week since they have been arriving to meet on this tiny square at the top end of the electricity pole. They relax in close proximity and let out beautiful foundational notes. Brahminy mynah is a very talkative bird and they have a wide assortment of notes to converse in their birdie language. They must be having wonderful tales containing descriptions of the unobvious.

With broadening connotations of our taming spirits, confidently holding the hangman’s noose to tame the darkness on the surface, we are throwing beams to light up the stage for our ever-unfolding mind-work of creation and destruction. The village has street lights now. As I stand on the terrace at night, I can see the unfolding spectacle of our beams pursuing the darkness. And darkness seems to be retreating under the baffling barrage of our lights. But then maybe it’s creeping inside, vacating its posts on the outside, giving us a false sense of victory and is seeping through our skins to take a counteroffensive position in our hearts.

Well, I remember perfectly dark nights, real nights, in the village during our childhood. The streets were completely dark and the simple houses fought the dark with flickering oil lamps. And now we are fighting against the nights to have 24-hour days on earth. We may lose our nights altogether due to light pollution. Lights hold the enduring legacy of our stepping out of dark caves to enter the un-blushing charm of the brightly lit palaces of convenience and comfort. Lights, lights everywhere: street lights, bazaar lights, vehicle headlights, mast lights, blazing skyscrapers, fiery rockets, lights-lights and more lights. Now even oceanic depths are disturbed. The unshaded light flies off into the sky only to be scattered back by the clouds, gases and dust molecules in the atmosphere. The LED lights are bright but glow at the blue end of the spectrum. It gives them more penetration into darkness. In future when urban centers will dot all nook corners on earth, we will have far milder nights or maybe not altogether. Work-life balance rapidly falling in favor of work, the unsparing work culture will welcome endless days. China, cringing with egregious cynicism, in fact is trying to develop an artificial sun to keep blazing 24-hour non-stop over a city. A scenario of ‘no nights’ is highly likely and plausible in future. Just light, light and more light. Then darkness will be sold like bottled water is sold presently. We will have doses of darkness in closed chambers as remedies for the diseases born of too much light.