Romancing with pause in a little world

 

There is so much to learn at each step I take in the countryside. Wild grasses, flowers, bushes and shrubs hold their secret for stiffed arrogant hasty walkers who go determinedly in pursuance of a monetary goal. But they smile, greet and lay bare their secret to anyone taking a pause, look carefully and caress some wild flower. There is so much to learn about small things in life.

Common water hyacinth might be called ‘terror of Bengal’ due to its invasive tendency, but here it’s no terror. The aquatic plant freely floats on water edges. Its buoyant bulbous stalks hold green glossy leaves. Some of them have lavender flowers.

This is late October and this little patch of wilderness between the canals is adorned with its blooms. Urena lobata (Caesarweed or Congo jute) are tender shrubs. They have small pink-violet flowers where a little group of white butterflies is having a peaceful nectar feast on this noon.

There are eucalyptus, neem, sheesham, mulberry, peepal, banyan trees along the canal bunds safely holding the undergrowth around them. The local forestry department has planted some blackboard trees (scholar tree or milkwood). The latter have prospered well here. Their glossy leathery leaves are found in whorls of six or seven.

Carrot grass (Congress ghas or Santa Maria feverfew) has grown very well without feeling guilty about its invasive worthlessness. It’s not maligned as an invading weed here in this little free ribbon of wilderness between the canals and on the outer bunds on both sides. But its tiny white flowers can cause pollen allergies for those sensitive to it. On the optimistic side, some researches are proceeding to look into its heavy metal removing properties. Mother nature still holds lots of secrets in her coffers for we the kids to explore.

Common cockle bur has hooked projections. The burs stick to the clothes of solitary loungers like me, probably recalling our attention to their medicinal properties.

Prickly chaff flowers (devil’s horsewhip) have spikes with reflexed flowers arranged on a long peduncle. Not too suitable to caress and go near, but they have uses in dropsy, piles and boils.

Common mugwort (riverside wormwood) forms a lush green carpet of little frilled leaves.

Senna hirsute is a smiling yellow-flowered beauty crowned with joyful butterflies hovering around.

Pampas grass flaunts its rustling silvery inflorescences. It’s the stalwart of the grassy world reaching up to four meters, almost forming a second-tier tree-line below the bigger trees. Their blade-like leaves make rustling music as their cut the breeze to contrive natural percussions.

Saccharum spontaneum (kansh grass) is a perennial grass growing to three meters. It’s useful for making thatched roofs.

Then there are reeds having their resident colonies of weaverbirds and warblers.

I caress yellow common wireweed flowers as I walk gently in this little slice of solitude on this noon. There are some fish ponds at some distance from the canals. Black kites and cormorants fly to steal fish. This is a little strip of solace for me. It holds a few units of wilderness in its ribbon-like sojourn across the cropped fields on both sides of the canals. You cannot see much on both sides as kansh grass and elephant grass provide a suitable fencing. When I take gentle footsteps across the shrubs, bushes and grass, I get the feel of a forest. Especially at noontime the quotient of solitariness goes up by several notches as the farmers have returned home and even the distant voices cease to exist to cut across the natural fencing.