My mother's garden

18th April

It is a sunny summers day in Madras.  I open the gate and stand for a minute.  It is always the same, I enter the garden and my mind is stilled, and life slows down.

This time, I am thankful for this refuge, this personal sanctuary and linger on outside.  I postpone seeing my mother's warm smile and walking in to my father's cheerful chatter as I quietly make my way around the house.

The gnarled trunk of the Bottlebrush tree has always been my favourite, and today, it looks magical with the Peltaforum flowers like little drops of sunshine on the ground

Along the wall, the Quisqualis flowers nod in bunches. 

I stand in their shade and look up at the bright blue sky and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" plays in my head.

The Copsia delights my Ikebana senses, with its graceful lines and delicate flowers

Those flowers, in shades of pink and white, so lovely yet so shortlived.

The lipstick red of the Hibiscus blazes in the sun, while in the shade the Amaralis lilies are more muted and elegant I thought.

I had not noticed this creamy bloom before in the garden, was it a new addition, I wondered.  Or has it been so long since I wandered around the back?

The mango flowers were precursors of the coming season

The crows seem to know too, as they hang around and caw.  The mynahs on the coconut tree seemed to be discussing my presence in a most disapproving fashion, while the sunbirds ignored me, too busy in their search for nectar.

A parakeet went screeching into the neighbour's garden, as I moved on further and came across these flowers.  The little white ones, (need to find out what they are called), I wonder if they belong to the grass family.

In the corner by the wall, the spider lilies grow in abundance, happy for the space, the sunshine and the water it seemed.

As I circled back to the front, the always blooming desert rose greeted me.  The seed from this plant has grown in a pot in my balcony, and I love the way it blooms in the hot Madras summer.

Back to the Peltaforum tree that had showered its flowers under the bottle brush, and I have come full circle.

My little "pilgrimage" done.