Slaves, 4th of July and a morning walk

 Strange are the connections one finds.

Monday morning was cool and cloudy, the roads wet and "puddly" with the overnight rain.  I walked along Besant Avenue, having no stomach to face the Monday morning human litter that I was sure to find along Bessie Beach.

There was a time when Besant Avenue was a quiet, tree-lined avenue, with an occasional car, and an even more occasional walker.  It was 7 am and there was a steady stream of cars either way, but the pavement and the trees made for a pleasant walk.  From Rajaji Bhavan, past the tamarind trees, some Copper Pods and around the bend from the Scouting camp.  The Scouting camp seems to be totally abandoned - I had camped as a pre-teen Girl Guide in that very space, but now the gate is barred and there seems to be no activity within.  Good for the urban wildlife...some peace and quiet within.

Past a couple of Banyan trees that take up the whole pavement, with their telltale red fruits all smashed on the ground, and then I see the pavement strewn with these little white snow-flake like flowers.

I look up to see a bunch of trees within the TS campus in bloom, their branches coming over the wall onto the pavement.  I stop and stare, admire them, before moving on.

I retrace my steps back on the same pavement and give the trees more admiring glances.  They ring a bell, but I am not able to identify them.

A whatsapp message to Geetha and oh yes - they are Wrightia Tinctoria trees in bloom!  Paalai or the Pale Indigo tree, called Doodhi in the north.  I remember seeing them in full glory in the forests of Gir.  The flower formation is called a "Corymb-like cyme" on Wiki - though I could not quite make out the Corymb formation here.

I idly wondered who Wright was.  William Wright, was a Scottish botanist, and the genus Wrightia was named after him by the Botanist Robert Brown.  I wonder why.  It does not appear that Brown was Wright's student.

Wright for his part was a botanist, but what caught my eye was that he was a slave owner, believe it or not, with many slaves and an estate in Jamaica.  He was also against the abolition of slavery, says the Wiki, reference.   

And for me to find this connection on the 4th of July.