At the end of a humid day

 

Usually the current days carry a severe air. And why won’t the days be heavy, laden with stress and anxiety? The modern culture suffers from the suffocating paroxysm of whooping cough—the cough of staying busy at all costs and milk every second for economic gains. But most of what we do as a species would sound as a practical joke from the perspective of those who seek the dimension of ease and just being.

A terribly humid, sultry, worn out and bedraggled day is downing its shutters here in my small yard and its little garden. Its pain and yearning melting away as it moves to the twilight, which is maybe just twenty minutes away. This is late August and after many rainy, cloudy days the sky cleared this afternoon with a feeling that we will have a few days of sunshine. A strange stability sets in; things settling down like a journeyman coming home after listlessly wandering in life without anchorage. The sky is full of dragonflies feasting upon midges and mosquitoes. They themselves are sometimes shot down by the swallows, neelkanths and bee-eaters. Some boys tattle and prattle on the roofs, their kites almost hung at a point in the humid air. These are slow but sweatily stupefying proceedings.

Most of the butterflies have retired for the day. Just a few of them still dance among the peregrina clusters. As I watch, a grass green butterfly that I thought was sleeping on a leaf nattily floated down like an old leaf. An imperceptible death. I pick it up. It’s fresh and beautiful but its ounce of life has flown away on an eternal journey. It’s a sad sight to hold a dead butterfly. I leave it among the flowers.

Two juvenile butterflies—siblings, friends, lovers?—are wise beyond their age. They retire early under a big tulsi leaf hung horizontally in a musty safe corner. Good night, have a lovely sleep you girls!

The next day is sunny and the peregrina blooms have dozens of dancing butterflies right from the start. But I find those two still asleep. Then one of them got awake a bit after seven and joined the revelry among the blooms. The other was lazier. It got up around eight to have its flying, fluttering fun.